Google Funds Automated News Story Software

[engine]

I read this story and checked the date and it's very recent.

Journalists, watch out, automation is after your job.

I wonder how long it'll be before someone finds a way to game the system

Google is awarding the Press Association, a large British news agency, $805,000 to build software to automate the writing of 30,000 local stories a month.

The money comes from a fund from Google, the Digital News Initiative, that the search giant started with a commitment to invest over $170 million to support digital innovation in newsrooms across Europe. Google Funds Automated News Story Software [recode.net]

[pressassociation.com...]

[JS_Harris]

Journalists are already receiving layoff notices at the NYTimes but as harsh as it sounds lost jobs is not the biggest threat of this automated software. When the company CEO(Eric Schmidt) creates a pro-democratic company to try and help one party win elections can you really expect unbiased automated stories? source: [qz.com...]

Something to think about in 2020 when you are conversing with hundreds of thousands of AI controlled social media profiles and a constant flow of automated new stories that contain bias. The Associated Press issued their 2017 guideline book this month, it contains a lot of terms that are now banned, to be replaced by more favorable left leaning terms. example: "refugee" is banned, replaced with "person struggling to enter Europe". (wish I was kidding). These stories will certainly become more of the same type of biased content but given that they can be scaled to no end they are dangerous.

Google's CEO wore a "staff" badge at Hillary's victory party before it was cancelled, while I don't completely hate the idea of a puristic automated article method it's not the job loss that worries me, it's the effects of political bias on a free country that does. You KNOW that if Google rolls this out with bias it will be met with an equal number of articles having bias on the other side, is that REALLY where we want our "news" to go? Bots yelling at ech other? People seeing the bias and continuing the mass exodus from formerly "trustworthy" news sources?

Just because Google CAN do this does not mean they should and, in my opinion, until they resolve the political bias they are spreading they really shouldn't.

[Shaddows]

El Reg had that story. As per their style, they cynically added commentary, which I liked:

The cash injection is part of the advertising goliath's €150m Digital News Initiative, a three-year program that allegedly supports European journalism through technology (or, rather, helps websites get more readers and thus shift more Google ads). Now in its third and final year, the fund will bankroll 107 projects in 27 countries to the tune of €22m ($25m) in 2017
[Emphasis mine]
[theregister.co.uk...]

Edit - style code issue

[edited by: Shaddows at 2:26 pm (utc) on Jul 13, 2017]

[Shaddows]

Also, tangor had it first.
[webmasterworld.com...]

With Register link, and pulling the same quote as me. Thus proving there is nothing new under the sun.