C3PO-NO! - Attack of the Robot Journalists

Machines or Robots have been taking over human jobs for the past 100 years, often meaning faster production, better quality goods, no room for human error and putting a lot of people out of work.

But did you ever think it could happen to journalists?

Now you're probably imagining R2D2 rolling around the streets with a note pad and pen, conducting interviews and chasing up leads. The reality is far less exciting but none the less a terrifying prospect for the future of journalism. Many news organisations such as Forbes.com have already set up an artificial intelligence platform which churns out automated news from live data and content gathered from previous articles. A company called Narrative Science is to thank for this as they work on developing algorithms that "Turn numbers into knowledge" though their goal is to "Amplify our own abilities rather than replacing them."

This, I think, is the main fear, that if Bots can replace something as intelligent in analysis, creative in word play and personable in tone as a journalist, we should all be quite afraid.

However, so far the general consensus is that the Bots are great at crunching  numbers, percentages, outcomes and relaying factual information, but when it comes to the creativity of human analysis, we are left wanting. So perhaps there is a hope for both Robot and Human to co-exist in online journalistic synergy; or as with many other industries consumer demands and efficiency outweigh the gratification of the human touch.

Theguardian.com had a bit of fun with the idea of robot journalists and challenged Will Franklin, one of their own developers to create a news bot...in a day. He created an algorithm that would curate information from the internet and convert it into a simple structure article on quinoa, this is what they ended up with.

"The crime-ridden family of quinoa has taken US by storm this month. According to Peru, New York has confirmed that quinoa is more story than anything else they've ever seen. Quotes from top Yotam Ottolenghi eaters suggest that "crop" is currently clear top, possibly more than ground black pepper. Experts say both Salt and University need to traditionally grow to strengthen a common solution. Finally, it is worth slightly rattling that this article was peeled until it made sense".

So perhaps we're a little way off yet before losing our jobs to Johnny 5, but it would seem that an automated instant news room with fully functioning artificial intelligence platforms is closer than we think.

Linked articles and websites bellow:

http://www.theguardian.com/media/shortcuts/2014/mar/16/could-robots-be-journalist-of-future

http://www.narrativescience.com/narrative-analytics