More than 300 print, digital media and broadcasting outlets are now regularly using news from RADAR, a news service that relies on artificial intelligence generated writing to mass-produce stories.
The upstart service, initially underwritten with funds from Google’s Digital News Initiative, needs only six journalists to produce 8,000 – 10,000 hyper-localized news stories each month.
Essentially, RADAR’s journalists generate all that copy by creating story templates, which use AI to extract data from government and other databases to localize reports to specific towns and municipalities.
For example: Using the templates and AI-generated writing, a government trends report on crime statistics throughout England could be sourced to produce hundreds of unique news stories illustrating how that data applies to specific towns and municipalities across the U.K.
“RADAR has evolved from a Google-backed experiment in data journalism to a subscription-based business,” says Gary Rogers, editor-in-chief, RADAR.
In other AI-generated writing news:
*AI Not Taking Journalists’ Jobs: AI-generated writing and similar AI tools are currently designed to eliminate some of the drudgery associated with everyday journalism so that writers can focus on more creative tasks, according to Marc Fischer, CEO, Dogtown Media.
Fischer, along with representatives from The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, WIRED and Graphika shared insights on the impact of AI on journalism at the University of Missouri.
Their message to students: AI is already transforming news operations in ways unimaginable even several months ago.
Specifically, AI is revolutionizing journalism with customized content, improved reader/viewer/listener/user relationships, moderating news media comment domains and creating more efficient workflows, according to the experts.
*Hollywood Scriptwriting: Another Writing Form AI Can Automate?: Hollywood directors are beginning to experiment with scripts generated by artificial intelligence.
Case in point: a 60-second Lexus commercial, created with AI-generated writing from IBM’s AI-driven tool, Watson.
“It’s only a matter of time where the formula of what makes up a great story, a great character can be learned by a computer,” says Kevin Macdonald, who produced the Lexus commercial using Watson’s AI-generated script.
*New AI Personal Productivity Tools for Writers: AppPicker offers a rundown on a number of AI-driven tools that can help writers with proofreading, plagiarism checks, content assessment and more.
“As researchers and companies continue their work when it comes to artificial intelligence, you can anticipate systems in the future that can help writers of various kinds when it comes to providing easier and higher quality writing,” according to the author.
*Journalism Students Must Become AI-Literate: Given the wide-sweeping changes underway triggered by AI-generated writing and similar tools, journalism students need to ensure they’re AI-literate before they apply for their first job, according to Nick Diakopoulos, assistant professor, communication studies and computer science, Northwestern University.
“We need to think about educational models to up these different literacies for journalists,” Diakopoulos says. “We might imagine a doctorate of professional practice for computational journalism.”
*AI an Aid – Not a Threat – to Journalists: Fears that current AI tools will make it tougher to secure and hold a job in journalism are unfounded, according to this article in Maekan.
“AI offers a means for journalists to re-imagine and better leverage their skill sets,” according to Nick Monaco, disinformation analytics, Graphicka.