Predicted: In 15 Years, 90% of News Stories Will Be Written by Algorithms

More

That's the vision of the journalistic future of a company now training computer-writers.

robotauthor-body.jpg

We've already begun to see a trickle of computer-authored journalism. Prepare yourself for the flood: In 15 years time, more than 90 percent of news will be written by an algorithm, predicts Kristian Hammond, the CTO and cofounder of Narrative Science, according to a fascinating new profile of the company by Steven Levy in Wired (definitely recommended-reading in full).

What about the jobs? Those poor, wretched journalists who will be thrown out on the street to fend for themselves among the remains of other 20th-century industries? What will become of them?

But it's not a zero-sum game in which one robot-produced story shoves a work of the human brain out the door. Rather, the "universe" of news stories is expanding, and the algorithms of Narrative Science are there to meet the latent demand for news too costly for humans to craft.

Take, for example, Little League games. What grandparent wouldn't love to read an account of the highlights from her kid's game? But what newspaper is going to send reporters to cover them? None. Narrative Science has figured out a way to fill in that gap. With an iPhone app called GameChanger, parents can enter a game's play-by-play, down to each pitch. Supplied with that data, Narrative Science's computer programs can create little write-ups of the games which grandparents and all avid Little League fans the world over can read online. "Last year," Levy reports, "the software produced nearly 400,000 accounts of Little League games. This year that number is expected to top 1.5 million." The program even displays some "emotional intelligence" in its Little League reporting: Grandparents, as it turns out, don't really want to read a straight drama of ups and downs, as though they had no dog in the fight. They want to kvell. "So," Levy writes, "the algorithmic accounts of those matchups ignore dropped fly balls and focus on the heroics."

But as much as it is the quantity of computer-produced news that impresses, Narrative Science's execs are bullish on quality as well. Asked if computer-journalism could win a Pulitzer in the next 20 years, Hammond spat back "five" -- likely a scoop from the data computers are so well-positioned to mine.

Jump to comments

Rebecca J. Rosen is a senior associate editor at The Atlantic. She was previously an associate editor at The Wilson Quarterly, where she spearheaded the magazine's In Essence section.

Get Today's Top Stories in Your Inbox (preview)

Video

More Video
Here's What Happens When You Light a Fire in Space


Elsewhere on the web

Join the Discussion

After you comment, click Post. If you’re not already logged in you will be asked to log in or register. blog comments powered by Disqus

Video

Miami: The Next Big Start-Up City?

How the city became a center for innovation

Video

Video

A Brief History of Romantic Comedies

From The Atlantic's Chris Orr

Video

Life in 'the New Arctic'

A moving portrait of a fading landscape

Video

Video

The Rise of New York City

A fascinating look at Manhattan in the 1940s

Video

What Is Methane Hydrate?

"Flaming ice" is a vast natural energy source

Video

NASA's Time-Lapse of the Sun

Now with epic dubstep music

Video

Shaken Not Tuned: Cocktail Experiments

Can a tuning fork improve a cocktail?

Video

Video

Is He Cheating? A 1950s Guide

'That little blonde secretary from the office?’

Video

New Yorkers: Vintage Vacuum-Tube Amps

Risking electric shock to restore old amplifiers

Video

The DIY Piano-Bicycle

Everybody needs a hobby

Video

What Does It Take to Make Real Craft Gin?

Tour the Green Hat Gin distillery

Video

What Straights Can Learn From Same-Sex Couples

New insight from decades of research

Video

The End of the Mall Rat

A tribute to that pillar of teen culture

Video

The Wonderful World of Capitalism

An adorable 1950s cartoon

Video

New Yorkers: Miss New York USA

An unconventional beauty queen.

Writers

Up
Down

More in Technology

In Focus

Early Monsoon Rains Flood Northern India

Just In