Editors and writers looking for signs that AI is automating their jobs saw plenty of evidence in Q3, as IBM automated much of the news coverage of the U.S. Open in September.
Meanwhile, a major player in productivity suites, Zoho, rolled out one of its latest offerings — the automated writing of short business reports.
And Sweden-based AI-generated writing pioneer United Robots revealed it had completely automated the writing of a real estate section for a major publisher in Scandinavia.
There was also new activity in the automated writing of popular music lyrics, which has been going on for more than a year now.
Other key reports of AI’s push into automated writing include:
~The release of a prototype AI ‘sports coach,’ which can give teams pep talks based on rousing speeches given by some of history’s most famous coaches
~The release of a free-to-use, open source competitor to GPT-3 — one of the world’s most powerful auto-text generators
~An up-close profile on Phrasee, an AI advertising tool that auto-generates ad slogans, email heads, corporate mottos and other short marketing text
Here are the details on those and other change milestones for Q3:
*U.S. Open Coverage: Now Automated: IBM is once again serving-up auto-generated micro-stories featuring its predictions on the probable outcomes of every tennis match scheduled for the U.S. Open this year.
Fed by data on each player — along with news media mentions about the players — IBM runs the info through its AI-powered super-computer Watson to come up with picks on winners and losers.
The result: Each micro-story features head-and-shoulders shots of the two players up top, followed by a pithy quote about each.
The story closes with IBM’s short-and-sweet written analysis on the match-up.
That breakdown is a number-cruncher’s delight, with supercomputer insights on tennis player Novak Djokovic, for example, like:
~Through the 1st Round, he (Djokovic) has a percentage of points with winners of 28%, 2nd among players in the field of 128
~Djokovic’s percentage of errors from the backhand is 56%, ranking 10th in the field
Meanwhile, Watson’s take on Djokovic’s opponent, Tallon Griekspoor, included:
~Through the 1st Round, his (Griekspoor’s) fastest serve speed is 149 MPH (240 KMH), 2nd among players in the field of 128
~Griekspoor’s percentage of points with backhand errors is 4%, versus 7% for Djokovic
All told, IBM’s auto-generated micro-stories are a formidable example of how AI can slice-and-dice the prospective outcome of a sports match in a way that is virtually impossible for even a team of human sports writers to equal — given the same amount of time to do their own analysis.
The U.S. Open runs through September 12 this year.
*One Fiction Writer’s Take on GPT-3 Auto-Writers: Novelist Michael Coorlim, who has tried a few auto-writers based on GPT-3, thinks fiction writers are safe from being replaced by a computer right now.
But he still has a healthy respect for the tech.
Observes Coorlim: “Competing with machines that are both more and less than human doesn’t intimidate me in the slightest.
“Instead, I see the potential in the tools themselves — the ways I could integrate them into my own process, how they can speed-me-up and shave weeks-to-months off the time it takes me to write a new novel.
“Just being able to offload some brain function to focus on more creative tasks would be huge — will be huge.
“More importantly — this is inevitable. The only choice we have in the matter is how well we prepare ourselves for the disruption ahead.”
(For an in-depth look at GPT-3, check out: “GPT-3 and AI Writing: Stunning, if Imperfect,” by Joe Dysart.)
*Zoho Jumps Into Automated Business Reports: Zoho, a major player in business productivity apps, has jumped into the automated business reports space.
The company has rolled-out new business intelligence software, which enables users to auto-generate written reports from company databases.
The new tool also enables users to ask for insights into company data — which are answered by the software via auto-generated text responses.
Observes Thor Olavsrud, a writer for CIO: “Adding such natural language capabilities is in line with the latest trend toward ease-of-use by self-service BI (business intelligence) vendors.”
(For an in-depth look at the trend in auto-generated company reports, check out, “Company Reports That Write Themselves,” by Joe Dysart.)
*Need a Pre-Game Pep Talk? Ask AI: AI researchers have come up with a prototype virtual sports coach, which can give inspiring pep talks to teams that need a good jolt to win.
The AI software was brought up-to-speed by ingesting the best motivational pep talks by sports coaches researchers could find.
Once enlightened, the system is able to regurgitate those speeches, as needed.
Plus, it can synthesize a new pep talk for any given sports challenge, on-the-spot — cobbled together from a number of those greatest pep talks of all time.
Researchers hope their virtual sports coaching software can ultimately be adapted to create similar virtual coaching software for business teams.
Observes Michael Vizard, a writer for VentureBeat: “In theory at least, if an AI platform knows what strategies were employed by business leaders that faced a similar challenge, it could provide timely advice to the ‘head coach’ of a business.”
The virtual sports coach research is a collaborative effort of OpenAI — makers of the GPT-3 auto-text generator — and SportsBettingDime.
SportsBettingDime is an online gambling outlet.
*The AI Lyricists Are at it Again: A California-based team of musicians and AI enthusiasts have won the Eurovision Song Contest.
Their tune — “Listen to Your Body Choir” — features lyrics written by AI that are generated by a system developed in part by analyzing massive amounts of music data.
That data includes patterns, drumbeats, melodies, chord sequences, lyrics and vocals — according to Malcom Jack, a writer for The New York Times.
Alas, a mere human was tasked to sing the AI-composed tune.
The reason: the creative team concluded the AI’s own voice sounded too robotic.
AI music aficionados last made headlines in April when Rolling Stone reported on a group that forged a new song in the style of Nirvana.
Dubbing their tune, “Drowned in the Sun,” the creators relied on Google Magenta to lay down the beat, rhythm and melody of the song.
And they turned to other AI software to come-up with song lyrics.
The result: A catchy, Nirvana-like offering – sung by a Kurt Cobain impersonator — that sounds authentic to the casual listener.
The creators – Over the Bridge, a mental health organization – are the first to admit they had AI help from human beings.
Specifically, humans edited down the raw music and lyrics churned-out by AI to create a final production.
Even so, “Drowned in the Sun” offers an early listen to AI’s increasing involvement in music production.
In fact, AI has been inspiring music lovers to create automated music for a number of years now.
YouTuber ‘Funk Turkey,’ for example, had some fun last year using AI to generate lyrics for an AC/DC knock-off tune.
“I put the lyrics of AC/DC into a bot and asked it to write a song,” Funk Turkey says.
The title of AI’s AC/DC-aided lunge at rock-and-roll fame?
“Big Balls,” of course.
Meanwhile, music Web site Lyrics.rip has dabbled in AI-generated music with its own knock-off of Metallica.
Specifically, Lyrics.rip fed the entire catalog of Metallica’s lyrics into an AI-text generator and in industry jargon, ‘let-it-rip.’
The result: a song entitled “Deliverance Rides.”
The AI-generated tune features endearing verses like, “Curses rest on our brains / No, there’s an evil feeling in vain / I can’t believe I stand alone / Beast under wicked sky.”
Music accompaniment to the wide-eyed rants was written by a flesh-and-blood collaborator.
And over at Georgia Tech, AI researchers unleashed Shimon on the world in 2020 – a ‘singing’ robot that uses lyrics composed by AI.
The mechanized crooner — who is often backed-up by human musicians — was ready to tour in early 2020, but had to put the kibosh on dreams of stardom when Coronavirus hit.
*Free-for-Download: Open Source Competitor to GPT-3: AI researchers and others looking to play with an extremely powerful auto-writer can download one for free from EleutherAI.
The open source group of AI researchers say their latest competitor to GPT-3 — GPT-J — can be downloaded from GitHub.
While GPT-J is powered by six-billion parameters — much less that GPT-3 — the auto-writer nevertheless offers similar performance to GPT-3, according to EleutherAI developer Aran Komatsuzaki.
EleutherAI also offers a live demo version of GPT-J that users can visit to type-in any combination of words and receive near-instant auto-writing in return.
*How to Completely Automate a Newspaper Section: Norway Publisher Bergens Tidende is offering a webinar September 22 on how to completely automate the home sales section of a newspaper.
Bergens Tidende won three Global Media Awards for automating its home sales Web site domain, which is written entirely by robots.
During the past 12 months, the real estate domain has attracted more than one million page views.
Plus, the section is also converting 5% of all Bergens Tidende readers from looky-lous into paying subscribers.
Squiring the September 22 webinar, slated for 10 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, will be Jan Stian Vold, news editor, Bergens Tidende.
*Phrasee: Profile of an AI-Generated Advertising Provider: BBC News serves-up an interesting look at automated advertising firm Phrasee in this piece.
Observes BBC writer Michael Dempsey: “Standard copywriting takes place through a process of editing, argument and approval.
“Mr. Malm says Phrasee does the same thing using a technique called deep learning — a vast network of parameters and pre-set limits that guide the program in the right direction.
“This allows it to bounce a slogan around, ranking its impact against raw data gleaned from many sources.”
But apparently, there are some who are wary of computer-generated advertising wit.
Says Rory Sutherland, vice chairman, Ogilvy UK: “My only reservation about using AI is that people will afford it more power and influence than it deserves in an attempt to automate things — to realize the Fordist dream of multiple copies rolling off an assembly line.”
Bottom line: This article is a good read for those looking to weigh the pros — and cons — of AI-automated advertising.
*JournalismAI Gears for Online Conference, Nov. 29 – Dec. 3: Journalism think-tank Polis is putting together an online conference emphasizing the positive impact of AI in journalism.
Dubbed the JournalismAI Festival, the conference will essentially be a free crash course on AI and journalism — serving up talks and presentations from numerous experts and practitioners of AI-driven news reporting.
You can get a feel for what the conference will be like by checking out videos recorded at the group’s conference from last year.
Underwritten by the Google News Initiative, the fest offers editors, writers, AI experts and others an up-to-the moment look at how AI is changing the news business — delivered from the perspective of companies and news publishers championing that change.
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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.