Years ago, when all the manufacturing jobs were being outsourced to third-world countries, we ink-stained wretches used to joke, “Well, at least they can’t do that with our jobs.”
Little did we know that some guy posting stories in his mother’s basement on something called the Internet would soon morph into the proverbial guppy that swallowed the whale. Just what the hell, we sneered, was a blogger?
Today even veteran print survivors — and I do mean survivors — blog. Heck, you might even consider what you’re reading right now a blog of sorts. I wrote it at home before sending it over the Internet, where it now appears electronically, as well as in print.
Maybe I’ll outlast printed newspapers, maybe not. But sure as death and taxes, I predict identical outcomes. Funny thing is, I really don’t mind — at least the portion not involving my own mortality. As long as you have trained, tested and trusted reporters and editors gathering, analyzing and reporting the news, who cares how it’s delivered?
People are also reading…
I do have one small caveat, however: Reporters have to be human.
Last March, the news industry was all over a breaking story in the Los Angeles Times that reported a small earthquake. The story, according to several news outlets, was almost-instantly written via an algorithm created by an LA Times reporter.
Turns out, robot writing is nothing new to the Chicago-based company, Narrative Science, whose Quill program, according to its website, promises to crank out “artificial intelligence that works for you.” Not only does Quill analyze facts and figures, it also produces “a story indistinguishable from a human-written one.” Hmmm.
Naturally, stories heavy on stats, such as financials and sports, fit neatly into the algorithms needed to “write” this stuff. But robotic reporting has also arrived at the point where it is able to cobble together certain catch phrases and clichés so dear to some sportswriters. Here’s an example given by the website Singularityhub.com: “It was a flawless day at the dish for the Giants.”
Why, you’d swear that phrase was written by a human, except for one tiny quibble: There is no “said” there. Where are the you-are-there quotes from the winning pitcher, the losing coach, the fans?
Where, in any of these robot-generated stories, are the sobs in the throats, the tears on the faces of the losing Little League team – or for that matter on the faces of the traders on Wall Street after a particularly brutal day?
If you want a human to read the stories that really matter, you’ve got to have a human surveying and describing the scene as it unfolds, asking the right questions, pointing out the crux of the story.
I can’t begin to count the number of living rooms and kitchens I sat in over three decades, asking the questions — but more importantly, listening — as people spooled out their lives, and their stories.
Sure, I had a list of questions to ask — questions a robotic system might also have voiced. But what happens when a subject suddenly veers off into a startling admission you did not know, or insists on showing you mementos that immediately change the angle of your story?
Even artificial intelligence expert Andy Chun acknowledges the limitations of robotic communication, telling the technology website m.slashdot.org: “Humans are highly effective at communicating with each other; we understand each other sometimes with just a nod, a wink, or just a single word/sound. Computers need everything spelled out.”
Narrative Science co-founder Kris Hammond — whose bio, incidentally, includes professor of journalism and computer science at Northwestern University — begs to differ. Just a year after his start-up was launched in 2010, he told the New York Times that he believed a computer could write stories worthy of a Pulitzer Prize by 2017.
Maybe. Maybe not. But if so, it had better have a few “saids” somewhere in the story.
Bonnie Henry’s column runs every other Sunday and is written entirely by a human. Contact her at Bonniehenryaz@gmail.com