The paragraphs below are excerpted from a fascinating article about robotic journalism software in Wired magazine...
"Can an Algorithm Write a Better News Story Than a Human Reporter?"
"Had Narrative Science — a company
that trains computers to write news stories—created this piece, it probably
would not mention that the company’s Chicago headquarters lie only a long
baseball toss from the Tribune newspaper building. Nor would it
dwell on the fact that this potentially job-killing technology was incubated in
part at Northwestern’s Medill
School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications. Those
ironies are obvious to a human. But not to a computer...
At least not yet.
For now consider this: Every 30 seconds or so, the algorithmic bull pen of
Narrative Science, a 30-person company occupying a large room on the fringes of
the Chicago Loop, extrudes a story whose very byline is a question of
philosophical inquiry. The computer-written product could be a pennant-waving
second-half update of a Big Ten basketball contest, a sober preview of a
corporate earnings statement, or a blithe summary of the presidential horse race
drawn from Twitter posts. The articles run on the websites of respected
publishers like Forbes, as well as other Internet media powers (many of which
are keeping their identities private). Niche news services hire Narrative
Science to write updates for their subscribers, be they sports fans, small-cap
investors, or fast-food franchise owners.
And the articles don’t read like robots wrote them..."
Read the full article at its sourece: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/04/can-an-algorithm-write-a-better-news-story-than-a-human-reporter/
PS - Check out Auto Reporter's page. Here's information about an example of the type of software described in the article above, from the company that provides it: http://reports.infonomics.ltd.uk/
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