4 ms·

I automating sports news is first, I predict that Finance will come next.

by iampims 16y ago

rorrr 16y ago
Seriously, most finance "articles" already look like they were written by bots. I have no idea who reads garbage like this: http://www.tradershuddle.com/20101117119131/Stocks/pre-market-update-gapping-stocks-f-urbn-c-fcx-hd.html http://www.tradershuddle.com/20101117119131/Stocks/pre-marke... http://collegestock.com/blog/885-metal-stocks-slumped-alcoa-inc-cenx-nor-fcx/ http://collegestock.com/blog/885-metal-stocks-slumped-alcoa-... There's literally no useful info, just data written as words.
- JonnieCache 16y ago
  That gets parsed back into data again by HFT bots probably. It's a mad world.
- ankimal 16y ago
  HFT = High Frequency Trading ?
  - JonnieCache 16y ago
    Yep. They do natural language parsing of wire news stories to try and synthesize market intelligence. Which is one day going to lead to a civilization-ending feedback loop due to the sort of thing we're discussing here (in my paranoid hyperbolic opinion :)
- firebones 16y ago
  I ran across this one on the Motley Fool and discovered that they're doing this already. http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2010/11/02/is-activision-the-perfect-stock.aspx http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2010/11/02/is-activisi... The first 12 paragraphs and the last paragraph are completely boilerplate. There are two paragraphs in the middle that were probably human-written. What I don't know is whether this is just a prosthetic "code-generation" tool for their writers, or whether it's just this one writer. This Google search shows that it is definitely boilerplate, and that some articles appear to be 100% generated: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&biw=1438&bih=697&q=%22some+stocks+are+a+lot+closer+to+perfect+than+others%22+site%3Afool.com&aq=f&aqi=&aql=f&oq=&gs_rfai= http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&biw=1438&bih=697&... Definitely a bot to "fool" the financial news aggregators.
aristus 16y ago
I saw that done back in 1999 with animated avatars, text-to-speech, market news, stock updates, etc. I can't find the details offhand but I believe it was a Bloomberg thing.
- petercooper 16y ago
  Might not be what you were thinking but Ananova was doing stuff like that back then: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ananova http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ananova
  - aristus 16y ago
    Ah, I think that was it. They were vague about how the copy was produced, so it might have been a bunch of interns.

I automating sports news is first, I predict that Finance will come next.

by iampims 16y ago

I automating sports news is first, I predict that Finance will come next.

rorrr 16y ago

Seriously, most finance "articles" already look like they were written by bots. I have no idea who reads garbage like this: http://www.tradershuddle.com/20101117119131/Stocks/pre-market-update-gapping-stocks-f-urbn-c-fcx-hd.html http://www.tradershuddle.com/20101117119131/Stocks/pre-marke... http://collegestock.com/blog/885-metal-stocks-slumped-alcoa-inc-cenx-nor-fcx/ http://collegestock.com/blog/885-metal-stocks-slumped-alcoa-... There's literally no useful info, just data written as words.

JonnieCache 16y ago
That gets parsed back into data again by HFT bots probably. It's a mad world.
ankimal 16y ago
HFT = High Frequency Trading ?
- JonnieCache 16y ago
  Yep. They do natural language parsing of wire news stories to try and synthesize market intelligence. Which is one day going to lead to a civilization-ending feedback loop due to the sort of thing we're discussing here (in my paranoid hyperbolic opinion :)
firebones 16y ago
I ran across this one on the Motley Fool and discovered that they're doing this already. http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2010/11/02/is-activision-the-perfect-stock.aspx http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2010/11/02/is-activisi... The first 12 paragraphs and the last paragraph are completely boilerplate. There are two paragraphs in the middle that were probably human-written. What I don't know is whether this is just a prosthetic "code-generation" tool for their writers, or whether it's just this one writer. This Google search shows that it is definitely boilerplate, and that some articles appear to be 100% generated: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&biw=1438&bih=697&q=%22some+stocks+are+a+lot+closer+to+perfect+than+others%22+site%3Afool.com&aq=f&aqi=&aql=f&oq=&gs_rfai= http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&biw=1438&bih=697&... Definitely a bot to "fool" the financial news aggregators.

aristus 16y ago

I saw that done back in 1999 with animated avatars, text-to-speech, market news, stock updates, etc. I can't find the details offhand but I believe it was a Bloomberg thing.

petercooper 16y ago
Might not be what you were thinking but Ananova was doing stuff like that back then: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ananova http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ananova
- aristus 16y ago
  Ah, I think that was it. They were vague about how the copy was produced, so it might have been a bunch of interns.