Writers take great pride in conducting in-depth research and writing informational and interesting articles that ultimately benefit readers. In fact, millions of readers around the world depend on quality articles from skilled writers. However, what some people do not realize is that every day, literally thousands of articles are written by robots.
Thanks to highly sophisticated computer algorithms, the creation of well-written articles by robots is already being done. A lot of people have read these articles without even realizing the words were not generated by a human.
Using technologically advanced software programs, robots are designed to scour through sources looking for specific information that can be turned into data. Examples of information gathered include baseball box scores, company earnings, and so on. The data is then transformed into sentences that sound like they were written by humans.
Keep in mind that the quality of the work is nothing that will get an award but the work is good enough that it reaches audiences with viable information. To better understand just how far reaching robot writing is, consider the Associated Press.
In July of last year, this world-renowned news-gathering organization adopted automated writing. Every quarter, roughly 5,000 printed stories are written by robots. In fact, the Associated Press recently invested in a company that uses big data called Automated Insights.
According to Lou Ferrara, vice president for sports, entertainment, and business news with the Associated Press said that right now, automated writing is only in the very early stages. However, with growing need, the company is now expanding the technology to cover a broader range of topics to include college sports.
As imagined, for human writers who pour their heart and soul into every piece created, robot writing is not as widely accepted. Many fear this technology will become so popular that it costs people their jobs. After all, the cost of writing with robots is much cheaper compared to humans. In addition, robots are not easily distracted by social media sites nor do they complain.
Even with the different advantages, Ferrara feels strongly that human jobs within his organization will never be at risk. The main reason is that unlike humans, robot writers do not product high quality content nor do they cover a huge range of topics so there are definite limitations. Robots focus more on things like repetitive analysis while people work on quality aspects of writing.