Artificial intelligence generated writing, which has been automating the production of some news stories for about five years now, is moving into sports news video.
Specifically: Reuters has begun using AI-generated writing to auto-generate video scripts for sports news.
The prototype system uses a minute-by-minute data feed from a sporting event to auto-create a text script of the game – complete with matching photography.
After the script is written, it’s processed and read aloud by the system’s AI-generated sports presenter – which is created from numerous video clips of a human presenter.
“Having pre-filmed a presenter to say the name of every premier league football team, every player, and pretty much every possible action that could happen in a game, Reuters can now generate an indefinite number of synthesized match reports using his image,” according to Forbes writer Simon Chandler. “These reports are barely indistinguishable from the real thing.”
Reuters’ longterm view: “Potentially, you could have presenter-led video reports on every football match in the UK, Europe or the entire world, delivered all-but-instantly after each match ends — or even at any point during play,” Chandler observes. “The possibilities are almost endless.”
In other AI-generated writing news:
*Editor: AI Commonplace at News Outlets in Two Years:
Already embraced by a number of top newspapers, the use of AI-generated writing and similar tools could become de rigueur in as little as two years, according to David Tomchak.
He’s digital editor-in-chief at the London Evening Standard – a paper that has already brought AI on board.
Tomchak’s caveat on AI: “We shouldn’t throw away the quality of journalism in a rush to technology. We need to figure out how to use it properly — and that will come from human beings, not from the technology itself.”
This article featuring Tomchak from the International News Media Association offers a great overview of AI’s application in journalism, along with an insightful Q&A with Tomchak.
*25 Million+ Databases to Search for News?: Google’s Got It: Given that databases are the lifeblood of AI-generated writing, more than a few news outlets will most likely rejoice at the appearance of Google Dataset Search.
It’s a new search engine from the tech goliath, laser-focused on searching the Internet for all imaginable databases.
“Google does a masterful job of collating all kinds of datasets from all across the Internet, with useful info like publication data, authors and file types available before you even click through,” observes Ren LaForme, a writer for Poynter.
“From NFL stats from the ’70s to catch records of great white sharks in the northwest Pacific, it seems to have it all.”
Currently, about 25 million datasets can be surfaced with the new search engine. Expect that number to rise in coming months, according to LaForme.
*New Zealand Braces For Wave of AI-Generated Student Essays: New Zealand educators are gearing up for a wave of AI-generated essays from students in coming years, according to New Zealand news outlet TVNZ.
The impetus: a study finding that AI software – with just a bit of training — was easily able to write a successful draft of a college paper.
The researcher behind the study is Grant Jun Otsuki, an anthropology lecturer at Victoria University of Wellington.
Otsuki conducted his research by feeding 188 student essays into AI-generated writing software. Subsequently, the software was able to generate a new, acceptable essay draft using that database in just 40 minutes.
Chris Whelan, chief executive, Universities New Zealand, says his university system is readying for an inevitable onslaught of auto-generated student essays in coming years.
“The idea is to not rely on simply just one form of assessment because there are risks around that,” Whelan says. “The goal is to be able to test knowledge and develop it at the same time.”
*Another Journalism School Adds AI to Curriculum: In another sign that higher education is moving to equip journalism students with AI savvy, a German journalism school has added AI to its course study.
“We want to arouse curiosity about the new technologies, shed light on their potential and their limits — and above all reduce the fear of contact,” says Marc Thomas Spahl.
He’s director of the Axel Springer Academy in Berlin.
Other journalism schools offering AI training include Cardiff University and Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas.
Cardiff began offering master classes in AI journalism tools this month.
And last year, the Knight Center saw a tsunami of interest in its course on data journalism, with a sign-up of nearly 13,000 students.
“We were stunned at the enthusiasm for the course,” says Simon Rogers, one of the course instructors and data editor on Google’s News Lab Team.
*AI Insider: News Outlets Will Need to Train AI Experts: Before newsrooms can be transformed by AI, the first wave of IT experts engineering that change will most likely need to be trained in-house, according to Noelle Silver.
She’s vice president of digital technology at National Public Radio.
Silver’s reasoning: Newsrooms –- which often operate on shoe-string budgets — don’t have the cash to bring in additional IT pros to imbue their systems with AI.
Instead, news outlets will more likely need to bring existing IT personnel up-to-speed on artificial intelligence, according to Silver.
Plus, they’ll also need to give those same IT pros training in journalism ethics.
“We’re not going to hire new people,” Silver observes. “We’re going to train these people. It’s not even academia that is going to handle this. It is a company. How many of us in executive levels of leadership are realizing we are going to have to train these people?”
Silver was one a number of publishing and tech experts who brainstormed how to deal with AI’s impact on journalism at NewsLab ’20, a two-day meeting sponsored in January by the NYC Media Lab and the Knight Foundation.
*AI: Keeping the Story Straight for Novelists: Author Vikram Chandra has come up with an innovative AI tool that auto-checks a novel for plot and detail consistency, according to Wired Magazine.
“Granthika is designed to help writers keep track of character attributes, timelines, the who-what-when-where of their tangled plots,” observes Wired writer Nina Riggio.
“From practically the beginning of his love affair with computers, Chandra has lusted after a word processor that will keep him from making inadvertent mistakes,” Riggio adds, referring to Grathinka. “So he built one.”
*New Guide on AI and Journalism Slated for March 20 Release: Francesco Marconi, an AI expert who helped integrate AI at the Associated Press and the Wall Street Journal, has a new book coming out.
Dubbed “Newsmakers: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Journalism,” the guide will offer Marconi’s perspective on how AI is enhancing newsrooms across the world.
The tome will also feature numerous case studies of AI implementations at major news outlets, according to Marconi.
*A PR Pro’s Take on AI and Public Relations: Martin Waxman will be offering his perspective on how AI is impacting public relations in a talk March 10 in Catharines, Ontario.
Dubbed “Putting the AI in PR,” the presentation will offer a look at key AI concepts, algorithm bias, natural language processing, AI ethics, transparency and the future of jobs.
Waxman will also offer insight on the AI skills PR pros need to acquire, as well as recommendations on how the industry can take on a leadership role in adopting AI.
*25% of All Newsroom Jobs Lost Since 2008: One quarter of all newsroom jobs have been lost since the Great Recession, according to the Pew Research Center.
Pew’s report was released last summer. But it continues to be regularly cited in 2020 news stories to help frame the prospects journalists face in coming years.
Most of the shrinkage in newsroom jobs occurred at newspapers, according to the report.
Granted, digital news outlets have created some jobs since the recession.
But those gains have not offset the decimation of traditional journalism jobs during 2008-2018, according to Pew.
*Special Feature: AI-Created Newsletters on the Cheap
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–Joe Dysart is editor of RobotWritersAI.com and a tech journalist with 20+ years experience. His work has appeared in 150+ publications, including The New York Times and the Financial Times of London.