Journalists reported a news story using machine learning

In November, the news website Quartz unveiled a bold idea: a studio, funded by the Knight Foundation, dedicated to reporting the news using machine learning techniques. Today, the Quartz AI Studio's first story dropped -- and it's an intriguing peek at how advancements in artificial intelligence could provide journalists with new tools for digging into public documents. For the story, Quartz reporters trained an algorithm to examine the section of ride-hailing app Lyft's Initial Public Offering (IPO) that lists risks the company anticipates -- and to identify the most "distinctive," or unusual, things that rattle Lyft's executives. The resulting list of Lyft's unusual concerns range from the fairly obvious to the moderately surprising. In addition to having concerns about "public perception," the company's leaders are also worried about how healthcare privacy laws will affect customers who use its service to catch rides to medical appointments.