Maybe computers writing AP’s earnings stories isn’t a bad thing

Joe Pinsker of The Atlantic writes that the announcement by the Associated Press that it will have computers write many earnings stories could actually be a good thing.

Pinsker writes, “While, yes, it’s true that algorithms can cram stories about vastly different subjects into the same uncanny monotone — they can cover Little League like Major League Baseball, and World of Warcraft raids like firefights in Iraq — they’re really just another handy attempt at sifting through an onslaught of data. Automated Insights’ success goes hand-in-hand with the rise of Big Data, and it makes sense that the company’s algorithms currently do best when dealing in number-based topics like sports and stocks.

“On top of that, the earnings report as a journalistic form, which is what one might worry is endangered by the introduction of newsroom algorithms, is already robotically formulaic. The way the AP has been writing these reports up until now demands that human writers act like computer programs, copy-pasting the day’s numbers into their predetermined slots.

“If algorithms that can write aren’t all that sinister, then it might be worth noting a trend that actually is harmful. The raft of articles today reporting on the AP’s announcement (which, to my knowledge, were written by humans) are practically indistinguishable, all digesting the AP’s press release to various degrees of incompleteness. Perhaps our fear — that it’s just a matter of time before a computer program tells us everything we need to know with inhuman flatness — should be channeled elsewhere, toward an industry whose economics encourage doing the same thing.”

Read more here.