How algorithms and human journalists will need to work together

Ever since the Associated Press automated the production and publication of quarterly earnings reports in 2014, algorithms that automatically generate news stories from structured, machine-readable data have been shaking up the news industry. The promises of this technology – often referred to as automated (or robot) journalism – are enticing: Once developed, such algorithms could create an unlimited number of news stories on a specific topic at little cost. And they could do it faster, cheaper, with fewer errors and in more languages than any human journalist ever could. This technology provides an opportunity to make money creating content for very small audiences – even, perhaps, customized news feeds for an audience of just one person. And when it works well, readers perceive the quality of automated news as on par with news written by human journalists. As a researcher and creator of automated journalism, I've found that computerized news reporting can offer key strengths.