Lorena Mesa, chair of the Python Software Foundation, is tweaking AI-generating writing software to produce a telenovela script.
It makes sense, she says, given that telenovela plots follow a well-established formula that AI can most likely replicate.
“I’ve always been really intrigued with the question of whether we can automate a creative process,” Mesa says.
“Also, it’s really fun to watch telenovelas,” she adds. “Let’s be real.”
In other AI-generated writing news:
*AI Robot Will Moderate Comments for News24 Web Site: News24 plans to use an AI robot to moderate comments below the articles it publishes online beginning August.
In part, the robot will be charged with filtering out hate speech and racist comments, according to a post on the news outlet’s Web site.
The AI software – Coral from Vox Media – is currently used by The New York Times and the Washington Post, according to Adriaan Basson, editor-in-chief, News24.
“Since we took down comments in 2015, our readers have been begging us to return the ability for you to make your voices heard,” Basson says.
“We have found the perfect solution,” he adds.
*Study: Human Journalists Still Have an Edge Over AI-Generated News: Researchers at Macromedia University of Applied Science have found that articles written by humans are perceived by readers as higher quality and easier to read.
Moreover, readers in the 12 distinct studies reviewed by the researchers also thought human-generated articles were just as credible as those written by machines.
One caveat: Readers tended to root for human writers – and give humans higher reviews – when they knew they were evaluating articles written by their flesh-and-blood brethren.
*New AI Tool Coaches Fiction Writers: Authors A.I. has released a new tool designed to help writers produce best-selling fiction.
Dubbed “Marlowe,” the software uses AI to show writers how their novel stacks-up against proven best sellers.
“Fiction authors have seen the marketplace change radically in the past decade with the dawn of ebooks, self-publishing — and, now, a boom in audiobooks,” observes J.D. Lasica, co-founder, Authors A.I.
“It’s time to add artificial intelligence to the list,” Lasica adds.
*Demise of Journalists Greatly Exaggerated: Despite the growing presence of AI-generated writing in the newsroom, journalists’ jobs are safe for the foreseeable future, according to Mark van Rijmenam.
He’s author of “The Organisation of Tomorrow.”
It details how AI, bockchain and analytics is changing business.
AI-generated journalism has “shown tremendous possibility in clearing away much of the field’s hard labor: collecting data, transcribing recordings, writing fewer interesting articles, etc,” Rijmenam observes.
“But when it comes to the work that truly makes a news organization stand out—in-depth reporting and analysis, political commentary, opinion columns—it’s clear that humans will be an essential part of this equation well into the future,” Rijmenam adds.
*AI and The News: Prognosis for the Future: Brigitte Tousignant offers her perspective on where AI is taking the news industry in this 34-minute podcast.
Tousignant is a freelance journalist based in Montreal who helped expose dangerous levels of lead in Canadian drinking water.
She’s currently completing her thesis on automated journalism in Canada at Corcordia University.
*Conference on AI and Journalism Slated for September: Charles University in Prague will be hosting a conference on AI and automated journalism September 24.
The academic gathering will examine how AI is transforming newsgathering, news production and news distribution.
A special track will also focus on the ethical implications of AI in journalism.
*Key Players in AI Journalism Live July 29: John Keefe will be talking “AI in Journalism” July 29 at an online gathering focused on emerging technology in the news business.
Keefe is a data journalist and adjunct lecturer at the City University of New York.
He’ll be joined by Alyssa Zeisler, a newsroom tools specialist at The Wall Street Journal.
Also on the panel will be Linda Gibbs, director of news partnerships at the Associated Press.
“AI in Journalism” is one of a number of tracks offered at the July 29-30 event, dubbed “Insights: Emerging Tech” and squired by the Online News Association.
*Opinion: Publishers Should Be Leery of Services Like MSN News: While Microsoft turned heads last month by replacing freelance editors with an AI algorithm, there’s another reason such algorithms threaten news outlets, according to Dominic Young.
He’s founder of axate.com, a company promoting a payment network that makes it easy for news outlets to bill their readers directly.
Specifically, Young fears that news re-packaged by AI on aggregate news sites dilutes the original publisher’s relationship with its readers.
“Detached from the title, that content degrades back into raw materials — and its value to the publisher degrades with it,” Young observes.
“Added to someone else’s product, it becomes more theirs than yours, and the value evaporates — as the painful experience of the news industry on the Internet has taught us over decades,” Young adds.
*Another Take on AI and Journalism: Adam Reichardt, editor-in-chief, New Eastern Europe, offers a fresh perspective on how AI is transforming journalism in this 18-minute podcast.
*Special Feature: Company Reports That Write Themselves
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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.