NEWS FLASH: AI Startups Are Reinventing Media

No technology trend today comes with more hype than artificial intelligence. Yet AI researchers often joke that most people don't quite see how it's changing the world--because as soon as something like Siri or Nest weaves itself into our lives, people forget it's "artificial." That sort of quiet takeover of AI has already begun in an industry we humans tend to hold pretty sacred--news. Last year, Associated Press announced that the majority of its earnings reports will eventually be written with AI-enabled software. While the company argues it will free up reporters to do more analytical work, the question it raises is unsettling: Should we just leave it to the machines to interpret what they see in piles of Big Data and write up the results?