Now comes news (via Peter Kafka in All Things D and Jason Boog in Galleycat) that robot-written “stories” are turning up on the pages of Forbes and other publications. The robots are made by Narrative Science, which (says its About page) “started life as a joint research project at Northwestern University Schools of Engineering and Journalism.”
That Narrative Science reportedly has thirty customers already says more about the state of journals than it does about journalism. Tyler Durden in ZeroHedge may have the best, if not the last word:
Condolences to all financial journalists. If you thought your meager salary was crap, you are about to be replaced by a costless algorithm. The market you wrote about no longer needs you. But at least we will now have computers telling us all about how (seasonally adjusted) trends in financial journalism employment are improving.
Probably what is even sadder is that nobody noticed as more and more robots have taken over for humans.
… if a robot is reacting to a headline written by itself (and it is only a matter of time before Narrative Science is acquired by GETCO or some other HFT behemoth in the latest market manipulation scheme) the epic collapse possibilities are simply stupefying.
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