AP’s ‘robot journalists’ are writing their own stories now

Ross Miller:

You wouldn’t necessarily know it at first blush. Sure, maybe reading it in the context of this story it’s apparent, but otherwise it feels like a pretty standard, if a tad dry, AP news item. The obvious tell doesn’t come until the end of an article: “This story was generated by Automated Insights.” According to AI’s public relations manager James Kotecki, the Wordsmith platform generates millions of articles per week; other partners include Allstate, Comcast, and Yahoo, whose fantasy football reports are automated. Kotecki estimates the company’s system can produce 2,000 articles per second if need be.