Coders Can’t Put Writers Out Of A Job Yet, But We’d Better Watch Our Backs

techcrunch.com

10 points·petercooper··4 comments

No doubt automation will eliminate certain tasks that are currently done by humans. But there are only so many where bots can replace people. Best I can see for the near future, bots could very capably create "news spam." More tweets anyone?

There are just too many aspects of human language that comprise an actual piece of literature that are not dealt with in a particularly integrated way by current AI/NLP techniques. Narrative structure is a really fuzzy thing in certain respects and has an immense impact on a reader. Symbolism, metaphor, and various idioms are learned through personal interactions and require a sensitivity to the author's role and intended audience.

Of course I just may be out of touch. Have there really been such significant advances in computer generated journalism/writing?

Looks like someone is selling it: http://www.narrativescience.com/technology/

This company was mentioned in the article as well. I've actually used them for doing a test run of generated content for a specific niche (I prefer developing, not writing) and found that once the article calls for something "meatier" like analysis, comparing events to other trends, or generally just being longer than 200 words, the artificial nature of it is glaringly obvious.

Much like true voice recognition, I doubt quality, automated journalism is even a decade off. Humans get better and better at identifying subtle differences.

See Hammond's ee380 talk, linked to at http://www.stanford.edu/class/ee380/winter-schedule-20112012... .

This year's EE380 (http://www.stanford.edu/class/ee380/ ) will have many talks of comparable quality.

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