4 ms·

This is way too difficult to get right, even for humans. I dream of a not-so-smart news summarization engine that will not try to rewrite the news, but only pi

by fiatjaf 10y ago

This is way too difficult to get right, even for humans. I dream of a not-so-smart news summarization engine that will not try to rewrite the news, but only pickup all the numbers and quotations, then present them in a table of who-said-what and how-many-what, along with the title. This would put an end to filler-based journalism.

hyperbovine 10y ago
I wish you wouldn't be so dismissive of journalism and journalists. What they provide is not filler. Controversial though this opinion may be around here, there is serious value in having an actual carbon-based life form -- one who has spent years or decades covering whatever beat -- provide context and insight for the quotes and data. That they have become a dying breed spells real trouble for our civic life.
- hueving 10y ago
  The journalists you describe are so few and far between that there needs to be a different term for them. The vast majority of the 'news' out there isn't anything close to what you described.
  - collyw 10y ago
    Agreed in an age where twitter storms are worthy of front page news.
  - ramblerman 10y ago
    The system is not set up to reward them, if there was a genuine demand we might see more of them. The unfortunate truth is that your clickbait and byte sized arguments are what people want. Trying to solve it from the top down is a lost cause.
- evgen 10y ago
  The HN crowd does not need context and insight, they can just google a few keywords and then skim a wikipedia article to achieve the expertise necessary to argue with others on a public forum...
  - rimantas 10y ago
    I think you described how modern journalism works. Except skimming Wikipedia is often optional.
- fiatjaf 10y ago
  Are you serious? Journalists have templates for news articles they just fill with some new data every time statistics numbers are released or a politician speaks.
faleidel 10y ago
Put an end to filler based journalism? That would be nice but don't you think that they will just evolve around your trick?
sdoering 10y ago
> This would put an end to filler-based journalism. No it might put an end to the filler-producing journalists, the so called journalism would still get produced, albeit by a bot. The real journalists (in terms of a better differentiation) would then be even more drowned out in an ever growing dessert of CGH (computer generated headlines).

by fiatjaf 10y ago

hyperbovine 10y ago

I wish you wouldn't be so dismissive of journalism and journalists. What they provide is not filler. Controversial though this opinion may be around here, there is serious value in having an actual carbon-based life form -- one who has spent years or decades covering whatever beat -- provide context and insight for the quotes and data. That they have become a dying breed spells real trouble for our civic life.

hueving 10y ago
The journalists you describe are so few and far between that there needs to be a different term for them. The vast majority of the 'news' out there isn't anything close to what you described.
- collyw 10y ago
  Agreed in an age where twitter storms are worthy of front page news.
- ramblerman 10y ago
  The system is not set up to reward them, if there was a genuine demand we might see more of them. The unfortunate truth is that your clickbait and byte sized arguments are what people want. Trying to solve it from the top down is a lost cause.
evgen 10y ago
The HN crowd does not need context and insight, they can just google a few keywords and then skim a wikipedia article to achieve the expertise necessary to argue with others on a public forum...
- rimantas 10y ago
  I think you described how modern journalism works. Except skimming Wikipedia is often optional.
fiatjaf 10y ago
Are you serious? Journalists have templates for news articles they just fill with some new data every time statistics numbers are released or a politician speaks.

faleidel 10y ago

Put an end to filler based journalism? That would be nice but don't you think that they will just evolve around your trick?

sdoering 10y ago

> This would put an end to filler-based journalism. No it might put an end to the filler-producing journalists, the so called journalism would still get produced, albeit by a bot. The real journalists (in terms of a better differentiation) would then be even more drowned out in an ever growing dessert of CGH (computer generated headlines).