Dan Kennedy, a journalism professor at Northeastern University, believes AI-generated writing represents a real threat to writers.
Specifically: the growing use of AI to automate the writing of sports, real estate, traffic, weather, financial and other data-intensive news stories.
Observes Kennedy: “It sounds innocuous enough, given that much of this work would probably go undone if it couldn’t be automated.
“But let’s curb our enthusiasm.
“Let me introduce you to the two most bottom line-obsessed newspaper publishers in the United States: Alden Global Capital and Gannett.
“If they could, they’d unleash the algorithms to cover everything up-to-and-including city council meetings, mayoral speeches and development proposals.
“And if they could figure out how to program the robots to write human-interest stories and investigative reports, well, they’d do that too.”
Bottom-line: Kennedy warns writers and others to dismiss the sugar-coated promotion of AI writing, which only presents the upside of the tech.
In a very real sense, Kennedy predicts AI — for all its benefits — is also robbing current and future writers of jobs and opportunities.
Observes Kennedy: “The highly skilled people whom I used to pay to transcribe my interviews no longer have those jobs.
“High school students who might have gotten an opportunity to write-up the exploits of their sports teams for a few bucks have been deprived of a chance at an early connection with news — an experience that might have turned them into paying customers or even journalists when they got older.
“And local news — much of which is already produced at distant outposts, some of them overseas — is about to become that much more impersonal and removed from the communities they serve.”
For an in-depth, 2021 look at how robots are replacing editors and writers across virtually all writing genres, check out, “The Robots Cometh: How artificial intelligence is automating writing jobs,” by Joe Dysart.
*In-Depth Look: Auto-Marketing Content Producer: CrawlIQ offers an in-depth look at how its auto-writer works in this 24-minute video.
The tool has earned high marks from TechPP reviewer Raju PP, who has described CrawII as the best overall content automation system on the market right now.
Observes Raju PP: “CrawllQ provides an end-to-end solution from market research to competitor differentiation to content automation — as well as search engine optimization (SEO).
“It might feel a bit overwhelming to set this up at first. But once you do, the content automation works great with the help of GPT-3.
“They go deep into every aspect of the business to collect as much data as possible to make sure the AI can tailor the content for your business.”
*One Computer, 60,000 News Stories on Soccer: Dutch Media Group NDC is bringing in AI-generated writing from United Robots to auto-produce coverage of 60,000 soccer matches (also known as ‘football’ matches in Europe).
Observes United Robot’s post: “Robots will write the match reports, while photos and comments from coaches will be collected through a crowd-sourcing platform.
“The result: NDC will offer unique local journalism which will give local communities – teams, players, coaches and fans – a stake in the sports reporting.”
Says Ard Boer, sport product manager, NDC: “Thanks to automated journalism, we’re able to write about every single local football match — coverage that’s not provided by anyone else.
“That — combined with the crowd-sourcing element — will drive inclusivity and engagement in the local sports communities, and by extension, create value in our news brand.”
*Swedish News Agency Automates Crime News Coverage: Sweden-based Siren is auto-generating 3,000+ news stories each day on crime and related breaking news using an AI writing tool from AX Semantics.
Matti Larsson, CEO, Siren News Agency, says those stories essentially cover every crime prosecuted in Sweden.
Observes Larsson: “It is then up to our customers in the various media outlets to determine which articles go to publication, and if they want to enrich the texts with quotes from the prosecutor.
“When launching the crime software, we saw an immediate rise in our read logs.”
*Marketers’ Take on AI Writing: Not Bad: Marketers interviewed for this post on Raconteur give AI-generated writing the nod — but still find the tech has its limitations.
Says Kim Darragon, founder, Kim Does Marketing: “AI-generated content can be pretty impressive.
“With a handful of keywords and in just a few seconds, you can have some solid copy for product descriptions, Instagram captions, Google meta-descriptions and LinkedIn ads.”
But even so, the AI-generated writing software Darragon says she has used is “not coming up with fresh ideas.
“While the content often looks good at first glance, it’s often shallow.
“And (it) still can’t replicate the depth of human-generated copy.”
*Set-It-and-Forget-It Zoom Meeting Transcription: Otter.ai transcription has rolled-out ‘Otter Assistant,’ a new feature that enables you to auto-transcribe all your Zoom meetings.
The new perk is designed to synchronize Otter.ai with meetings scheduled on your Google Calendar or Microsoft Calendar.
Once synchronized, Otter Assistant automatically transcribes every single Zoom meeting you have scheduled on your calendar — with no additional forethought needed.
Observes Sarah Perez, a writer for TechCrunch: “As the meeting (progresses), attendees can use Otter’s live transcript to highlight key parts, add photos and make notes.”
Given Zoom’s popularity, a number of AI transcription services are finding ways to work easily with the video meeting software.
Zoom App Dubber, for example, is designed to transcribe Zoom meetings into text — as well as note the emotional tone and sentiment of words spoken in those meetings.
Meanwhile, Transcribe.AI also auto-transcribes Zoom meetings from voice-to-text.
Plus, Transcribe.AI enables you to store those transcriptions on your computer — rather than in the cloud — ensuring you can control the security of those recordings locally.
*Digital Authoring Platform Adds Writing Style Control: Digital media authoring company CoreMedia has added automated writing styling to its toolkit, enabling users to stay true to the brand voice a firm is looking to portray.
The new capability — which comes from Acrolinx — scores content generated by copywriters for tone, correctness, clarity, consistency, inclusivity, scannability, proper word choice and proper phrase choice.
Says Soeren Stamer, CEO, CoreMedia: “CoreMedia Content Cloud and Acrolinx are teaming up to provide a new model for global brand orchestration – a model that combines quality, consistency, and relevance with speed, scalability, and automation.”
*Two Players in Law Offer More Automated Legal Docs: FromCounsel and Clarilis have expanded their offering of automated legal documents.
Says Andrew Thornton, CEO, FromCounsel: “There’s a huge potential in bringing fully maintained, high-quality automated legal documents to the broader market — from the many smaller firms that don’t have the same access to resources as the leading firms — to the larger firms looking to utilize their fee-earner resources on higher value work rather than time-consuming maintenance and manual processes.”
*Legal Docs Automation: Key Benefits: Woodpecker offers a look at how one attorney is scoring major new efficiencies by leveraging document automation.
Says Josh Landsman, a Florida-based attorney: “For me, automation did not replace my need for paralegal assistance.
“But it did change the dynamic between my paralegal and me.
“It’s enhanced the quality of the work we do together. We collaborate more effortlessly now.”
*Widespread Disinformation: With GPT-3, It’s a Snap: Wired Magazine offers one of the latest looks at how auto-text generator GPT-3 can be used to quickly generate a torrent of disinformation across social media and the Web.
Observes Wired writer Will Knight: ” When OpenAI demonstrated a powerful artificial intelligence algorithm capable of generating coherent text last June, its creators warned that the tool could potentially be wielded as a weapon of online misinformation.
“Now a team of disinformation experts has demonstrated how effectively that algorithm, called GPT-3, could be used to mislead and misinform.”
(For an in-depth look at GPT-3, check out: “GPT-3 and AI Writing: Stunning, if Imperfect,” by Joe Dysart.)
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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.