Meet The ‘Robot Journalist’ Who Almost Out-Wrote A Human Sports Reporter

As debate continues over what sort of payment, if any, contributing bloggers can and should expect to receive for their writing, one “reporter” quietly toils away without seeing a single cent.

Meet the “robot journalist,” a nickname of sorts given to a software program that can churn out news stories on par with – or, in many cases, better than – those written by slightly more human writers.

The program works by organizing inputted data into a cohesive, informative story. Initially, it was used to transform sports statistics into stories. However, sports site Deadspin once poked fun at a story on GWSports.com written by such a program, noting that it had left out a crucial bit of context: It had neglected to mention that University of Virginia player Will Roberts had pitched a perfect game.

Agreeing that this was a rather important element to the story, those in charge of the program proceeded to feed our little robo-friend this relevant detail, and a new, better version of the story was created, noting that “Tuesday was a great day for W. Roberts, as the junior pitcher threw a perfect game to carry Virginia to a 2-0 victory over George Washington at Davenport Field.” Nice!

We wonder how customizable or adaptable this program can be. For example, could it be set to write for a teen audience? Can it produce a “gendered” writing voice? Can it differentiate between producing, say, copy for a medical supply chain versus a joke-laden post for a comedy site? And, most importantly: Can it write about kitten videos?

Listen to the audio segment below, courtesy of NPR: