11 ms·
Google is funding the creation of software that writes local news stories
- calafrax 9y agoI was just thinking that journalism needed less on the ground reporting and critical thought. More mindless aggregation and repeating of existing data custom tailored to the views of the people reading it is really whats missing.
- jimrandomh 9y agoI would strongly prefer that robo-written news not exist, not appear in the results of any searches I make, and not appear in any feed that I read. It is pollution that makes real information and insight harder to find. Does anyone actually like this stuff?
- andai 9y agoI expect that a couple years from now, this viewpoint (and most of this thread!) will be seen as really offensive.
- tokyoSurfer 9y agoThis is actually making an opening for "human only" papers, that will be easier to distinguish from noise. Non-profit independent, governing body is a must though to issue certification.
- rahimnathwani 9y agoLike craft beer or artesanal cheese?
- Simon_says 9y agoI feel differently. I think there's a place for information that people would like to read as prose but the economics don't make sense to pay someone to write it. I feel like this is an advance that's increasing the wealth of the world because we're going to get more text while spending fewer man-hours on it. And it's just going to get better over time. It's obvious now when something was written by a bot, but I doubt that's going to be true for much longer. But, it should probably be labeled as such. Giving such text a human name as the author is indefensible.
- harperlee 9y ago> Giving such text a human name as the author is indefensible. Why is it indefensible in your opinion? I think it is only fair that if I have a job of writing some output based on some inputs, and I define a process to do that that can be automated, the end product is still my labor, and I can sign it.
- Simon_says 9y agoThat's a tough question, and now I'm not so sure I can defend my opinion. It just comes from the fact that (today) the output will not be as good as a human writer. It's disingenuous to pass off a low quality product as a higher quality product, when it will take my time and attention reading it to differentiate them based on quality. Think of it in terms of branding and counterfeiting. Later, after general AI, I will argue the opposite, that human-written articles should be labeled as such so I don't waste my time on them. ;)
- zzalpha 9y agoHaving just finished a play-through of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, this immediately makes me think of Eliza Kassan... it really is odd how many ideas in that game don't seem especially far-fetched these days.
- andy_ppp 9y agoI think the disgust factor will go away in a few years (maybe less) when most content is written by machines with slanting that the models say you will enjoy. Or that will cause you to spend money. Or click ads. You think you won't succumb to their influence now, but it'll happen and there will even be "journalists" who are machines that you like. The filter bubble will completely adapt to your every need to make you feel fantastic about reading their copy, humans won't be able to compete.
- babyrainbow 9y agoI am not sure. Do you read news for entertainment, or do you read it for truth?
- andy_ppp 9y agoThe algorithm will adapt to your every need.
- 11thEarlOfMar 9y agoI ran across this article while researching a stock and as I read, I kept thinking, "This was not written by a person. This was written by software." [0] I checked the attribution, and there is a person's name on it. Sure, any hack can write and publish and this is probably just another example. But the odd style doesn't even strike me as 'writing the way I think' or writing and publishing quickly without editing. For example, from the 2nd paragraph, "The corresponding low also paints a picture and suggests that the low is nothing but a 97.89% since 11/14/16." I can't gather any meaning from that statement, yet it has oddly specific details. I am not glad to see this trend and not glad that Google is embarking on this path. I suppose it is inevitable, but unless there is expertise built into this AI that can extract meaning from data on my behalf and present it in a way that is more insightful and interesting than I am, it will become yet another source of chaff I'll have to filter. Can we at least, please, flag AI generated prose as such? [0] https://www.nystocknews.com/2017/07/05/tesla-inc-tsla-showcases-what-it-has-to-offer-via-the-technical-chart/ https://www.nystocknews.com/2017/07/05/tesla-inc-tsla-showca...
- semperdark 9y agoI've also noticed this on financial/stock news articles. I've seen a few of them use full 4-word names for corporations ("The Coca-Cola Company") dozens of times in one article, and multiple times per sentence.
- dom0 9y agoThese are indeed frequently generated automatically.
- fjdlwlv 9y agoYes, finance and sports and weather and other metrics reporting is already highly automated.
- lspress 9y agoAutomated Insights https://automatedinsights.com https://automatedinsights.com - writes all the routine corporate earnings stories for Associated Press so they can cover more companies and let journalists actually investigate and write more nuanced pieces. Some earnings reports start with the software writing and get augmented by human journalists.
- mtgx 9y agoSo what happens when these bots are manipulated into writing fake news (in the same way the way better funded Google search is still manipulated for SEO purposes) ?
- owebmaster 9y agoGoogle makes a lot of money
- maybeiambatman 9y agoThen they are just as good/bad as bloggers today :)
- endswapper 9y agoThis submission is at least tangentially relevant: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14673489 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14673489. Combining these presents an interesting opportunity to create "future news" (news that is technically fake until it isn't) thereby owning the news cycle by always being first.
- PaulHoule 9y agoAbout 15 years ago I had the good luck of covering a news story before it happened and got a truly tremendous amount of traffic as a result.
- slig 9y agoCan you tell us more about it?
- PaulHoule 9y agoSure. There was a series of anti-war protests at a mall around Albany NY in the run up to the second gulf war. I had been covering the story on a regular basis, but it had gotten very little attention because the media had decided that anti-war protests were not newsworthy. Well, finally at one of these protests they arrest a judge and that is newsworthy. People start looking for names and places and these match the story I'd written at the last protest (where there had not been any arrests.)
- mc32 9y agoAt least in the near future, this has the potential to make facts-and-figures based news less biased (less influenced by author idiosyncrasies). Personally, I would rather news not be laden with personal flourishes that authors add either as filler or due to personal opinion. I do imagine further into the future, the automated systems will be "improved" with tone and bias to better fit the tastes of the individual reader, to the detriment of us writ large.
- nkozyra 9y agoPresentation of facts alone doesn't really preclude bias, though. Certainly all journalists carry bias - and styleguides and journalistic standards are intended to mitigate this - but any software intended to encapsulate some facts into some allotted space will also carry bias. Source/quote selection and omission will always lend some bias and news by nature has a finite space. Print news in particular imposes bias through strict space requirements, driven editorially. And then there's the weight of the sources quoted, defining a "side" or "angle" to a story and making sure there's balance in opposing voices, etc. I think a lot of people see bias as overt when it can be quite negligible and minor. But then they also often conflate news commentary with news. It's a pretty blurred line. That said, local news (politics, business, crime) tends to skew less toward prescribed narrative and more toward facts and points because it's often very dry.
- mc32 9y agoUnderstood. Yet, this would still be an improvement over newsstories which try to read insight into something where what they do's more or less projection and speculation without saying so much. "Amazon buys WF". vs "Jeff Bezos buys WF so you never have to talk to a cashier" Or, "Physician runs over pedestrian" vs. "Physician accused of insurance fraud runs over pedestrian"
- Dylan16807 9y agoI'm confused. Your first example seems to be adding pointless false commentary, while the second is adding real information about the person.
- chrismealy 9y agoIIRC there was a small town paper in the early in 1990s that wrote high school sports stories with a HyperCard stack.
- nkozyra 9y agoPrint journalism is pretty formulaic but one of the bigger challenges is finding and interviewing sources. Most news organizations have requirements on the minimum # per story and who those people should be. It's laborious. Sports, on the other hand, can be presented as a narrative of pre-defined, linear events. Those and crime stories represent probable the easiest form to automate. Pro and college typically warrant some quotes but so often preps are written by a stringer who just details the game.
- reallydattrue 9y agoVery Relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2Ut5GqQ1f4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2Ut5GqQ1f4 Google will one day be the arbitrators of news. If it doesn't fit in their world view, whether it's true or not. Will be removed from the results. I think now is the time to setup a different model and remove their monopoly. Internet freedoms are at stake here. Do no evil? Yeah right.
- sergiotapia 9y agoPicus News - The global leader in fair, unbiased, and impartial reporting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9OrmOAuuWc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9OrmOAuuWc
- dom0 9y agoWe also do security, surveillance and operate 100.5 % of the satellites around earth. (Looks familiar yet?)
- 4ad 9y agoOne day? That day is now.
- org3432 9y agoAlso relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvtNyOzGogc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvtNyOzGogc Sinclair Broadcast Group is doing basically this already, just in a low tech way and requiring its local TV stations to promoting their political agenda.
- OscarTheGrinch 9y agoI disagree. There has always been a definable difference between fact and fiction. Both have a place on the net but where fiction masquerades as fact with the intent to decieve, we have a duty to use all the tools at our disposal to destroy that ruse and choose more factual sources on which to base our decisions. I for one welcome our new news overlords.
- 9y ago
- kronos29296 9y agoWhat guarantee is there that the published news isn't fake? This might start something like viral fake facebook posts. We already have enough of those. Now we have automated fake news generator where you post your own fake news for free. This is what it will become one day. Hope they have something to stop it.
- minikites 9y agoWhy would this even be on Google's radar? They make money either way.
- untog 9y agoI don't really see what this has to do with fake news. Traditionally produced news stories can be fake, and algorithmically generated stories can be fake (when fed bad data). The only solution to take news is news organisations that people can trust. Historically, local news organisations have always been the most trusted, but their income has been absolutely decimated in the last decade or so. This feels like a desperate cost cutting measure, not something that will help the overall problem.
- kronos29296 9y agoThis decreases the barrier to entry. Sometimes that's all it takes to encourage the wrong things. The overall system is failing because it cannot adapt to the new internet age. Hopefully something changes and we get reliable news.
- illumin8 9y agoAbility to automate creation of news = ability to automate creation of propaganda = ability to automate censorship of news.
- tokyoSurfer 9y agoI am more afraid of options that this tool would have. Like fine tune it to be 5% friendlier on candidate 1 than 2. Report news on XXX 10% less than on news YYY. Make people happy. Make people sad. Make people compelling. All this by adjusting few options and changing the wording of articles.
- velobro 9y agoGood! I'm sure a bot is a lot better writer than the high school graduates my local paper employs.
- apeacox 9y agoWelcome to the Ministry of Truth
- divbit 9y agoFor the reporters friends I have, not sure how I feel about that - if I was a reporter, I feel I would want some software which enhances and improves my job experience and reporting ability, rather than flat out replaces it. (Not to criticize google, I'm sure any company startup, could be doing the same).
- kevinphy 9y agoA relevant and inspiring project with the statement: "Only Robot Can Free Information" https://medium.com/rosenbridge/only-robot-can-free-information-9f4ac3bb0701 https://medium.com/rosenbridge/only-robot-can-free-informati... Focusing on building robot for reader instead of news provider would be the future.
- DanBC 9y agoThere are 2 things I hope google or other AI companies focus on. 1) Making board papers more readable. There's a bunch of trusts in the NHS who have a stream of very complex board papers. Something to reduce un-needed complexity would save a lot of time and potentially money. 2) Converting all important documents to an Easy Read version. There are a bunch of writing styles for people with learning disability, low IQ, or low literacy. Easy Read is one. A company like Google focusing on this would be good because they'd improve the evidence base; they'd bring a bit more standardisation; and they'd improve access to information for many people.
- ams6110 9y agoDon't most reporters start out with obscure/niche stories so they can hone their writing styles on relatively "unimportant" or filler pieces? If machines do all of that work, how do reporters develop the experience to be able to write an organized, in-depth important story?
- notyourwork 9y agoI don't think reporters exist in this scenario.
- gumby 9y agoThe irony is that the I how radio news got its start. Ronald Reagan became an actor after being a "sports announcer" -- what he really did was read the ticker tape of a game in progress ("smith at plate. first ball strike no swing. Second ball base hit") and create an exciting story to go with it "And smith steps up to the plate. He flexes his muscles, kicks the ground and takes his stance. He passes on the first ball....strike! Here's the next pitch...he swings...solid towards third base. Is it a foul? NO!! AND HE'S SAFE ON FIRST BASE!!!" Really most "news" articles are only a couple of paragraphs long anyway and could be expanded or contracted on the spot to match the interest of the reader.
- Kenji 9y agoWithout machines acquiring true understanding of what is happening, this is going nowhere. I applaud their effort but it is misguided.
- mnglkhn2 9y agoThe question is: How are those news items going to be named: Robo news? Or maybe "fake news", until 'elevated' by Google curators? Maybe Microsoft's Ai bot experiment might offer a cautionary tale.
- mingabunga 9y agoIt's not actually Google doing it, they're just funding it. Here's a better article https://www.recode.net/2017/7/7/15937436/google-news-media-robots-automate-writing-local-news-stories https://www.recode.net/2017/7/7/15937436/google-news-media-r...
- speeq 9y agoI recently found a YouTube channel with news videos that seem generated mostly programatically with a robot voice over and a combined +44M views on the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzhc-N5YynO_shpHhzP2zuw/videos https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzhc-N5YynO_shpHhzP2zuw/vid... I wonder who's behind these and similar channels.
- fiatjaf 9y agoWhy? This is horrible. Why not just publish the raw data reporters got?
- downandout 9y agoIronically, the Adsense "valuable inventory" policy prohibits showing Google ads on automaitcally generated content [1]. I wonder if they will follow their own rules and refuse to show ads on content generated by this tool. [1] https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/1346295?hl=en https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/1346295?hl=en
- usmannk 9y agoAdsense policy: "Examples of unacceptable pages include ... Automatically generated content without manual review or curation" Article: "People will be involved in the curation and editing of the stories"
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- methodin 9y agoRandom thoughts: * Facts delivered with arbitrary fluff words is pointless even when written by a human - it obfuscates the real purpose which is the data * Companies pay humans to deliver articles in most cases and the bias of the writer or the institution that paid for it shines through. I cannot find a real difference between intentional angling by payment or by algorithm * When the day arises where computers could generate actually new, intelligent and thoughtful pieces I for one will be very interested in reading them. Sadly there would be millions of variations that could occur at an astounding pace. We'd then need algorithms to filter the generated content for the things that are really noteworthy. * News at its core is a sequence of facts which begs the question if we really need the cruft around those facts which can often lead to misinterpretation?
- drawkbox 9y agoTrue but think about this though, Hunter S. Thompson started out as a sports writer. Sports is a big area where this is used currently. Gonzo journalism wouldn't have even been a thing if it was all robo-writing at the time. I think it comes down to flavor/style. Even in food for instance, yes a robot can make a meal but a chef can make a dish (maybe later reproduced by robots but still). There will always be a need for style, which is really hard to automate.
- lspress 9y agoUnless the writer with style is the one training the AI...
- haterswillhate 9y agoFake news generator is invented a loooong time ago by CNN and Facebook. Why to invent wheel again ? Does this version have better fact checking with alternative word processor ? How detail this version is about moodmapping to connectivity ideology flow ?
- haterswillhate 9y agoGoogle do not suprise me anymore at all. Just a same as its competitors.. facebook, google, twitter.. whats the difference really ?
- akadien 9y agoGoogle is the problem. I thought they didn't want to be evil.
- adorable 9y agoWhat would those article-writing robots use as their primary source of information? If they write local news, will they use social media as their datasource? Other sources?
- tyingq 9y agoSomewhat ironic as Google has been fighting link spammers that use autogenerated content for years. Software like this is popular in that space: https://wordai.com https://wordai.com
- cwp 9y agoUgh. The last thing the world needs is more formulaic news stories. We need to move past the idea that the web is a virtual newspaper. News sites don't even use hyperlinks effectively, let alone audio/video/interaction. We should use AI to replace newspapers, not reporters.
- tannhaeuser 9y agoWhat about developing a counter-bot that detects and flags algorithmic content? Edit: come to think about it, isn't it what Google should be rather doing?
- notahacker 9y agoYeah. Google has spent years taking the position that extremely thin content generated at a massive scale involving no genuine research or insight is spam that should be penalised. Now it's writing software to do just this.
- askvictor 9y agoMaybe they're doing it to train their spam story detection algorithms?
- lspress 9y agoI think this may be a misconception on Google's stance on content generated at a massive scale. They dock you for text spinner type content, stuff with little variation, nonsense phrasing, and identical sentences pieced together in different articles from the same source. Content generated at massive scales that are actually useful and disseminated from multiple publishers (like local news sources) are what they don't punish.
- em3rgent0rdr 9y agoWe still haven't solved concerns about computers controlling our news feed, much less writing our news...
- igammarays 9y agoColor me extremely skeptical that current-generation AI can ever write decent quality news articles, even on the "easiest" subjects (i.e. non-emotional topics that may be most amenable to computerization). Sure, an AI might be able to produce the type of contradictory and fundamentally meaningless strings-of-words that characterize Trumpian speech, but even that would lack a unified agenda behind it. Even Trump seems to appeal to some raw masculine #MAGA emotion pretty consistently, but I doubt an AI would be able to do even that. If an AI could produce decent news articles with consistently meaningful statements, I think it would have huge implications for linguistic theory. Currently, we have no way of representing abstract semantic meaning in a computer, for example when I say the word "justice", you all know what I'm talking about because you all have embodied experiences of "justice" (or its opposite) in your personal lives (e.g. bullying). An AI simply never had access to this kind of embodied, experiential input. It only has access to patterns of strings that we humans produce. And so why should we expect an AI to be able to ever produce the same output that we produce when it has access to less input? Sure, one might argue that news articles are not novels, and so require a lower threshold of understanding to produce. I don't think so. We tend to underestimate the embodied nature of even the most basic use of language[0]. [0] See The Embodied Mind by Varela, Thompson, and Rosch.