本帖最后由 hudba 于 2015-2-2 07:49 编辑
Associated Press（以下简称AP），是一家美国非盈利的新闻机构，上周五他们对外宣布在过去的2014年的最后三个月，他们一共发布了 3000 篇文章，而在过去他们可能仅仅只能够发布 300 篇。 10 倍的发文数量增长的背后并没有任何人力成本的增长，所有的源头来自于一个算法。
在去年夏天，Associated Press 与 一家提供实时内容自动化生成的公司 Automated Insights 合作，通过算法将过去积累的数据转化成文章、可视化图片等等。就过往发的3000篇的文章，由算法生成的文章几乎没有错误，你甚至无法将这些文章与人类所自己撰写的文章分开。所有的文章都是以美联社的风格作为标杆，而内容丰富多样的远远超出了一个正常作者的能力。
不仅仅是高产和高质量，更重要的是他们在新闻时效性的优势。去年，在洛杉矶地震仅仅过了3分钟之后，AP 就已经将地震的新闻报道给公众，而在近日，苹果刚刚发布了他们去年的财报几分钟之后，AP 就撰写了关于苹果 2015 年 Q1 季度财报的预测。这意味着机器已经开始学习，甚至于提供分析、洞察力这些加入更多人脑思考的领域。
Narrative Science 是另外一家提供类似服务的公司，他们的 CTO Kristian Hammond 认为：到了2030年，可能有90%的新闻都由机器写作完成。目前，福布斯还有一些新闻媒体，已经使用Narrative Science 公司的软禁写作电子邮件等等的文件了。可以想象，未来机器写作代替的场景会越来越多，同时它们的写作新闻会越来越智能。
AP's 'robot journalists' are writing their own stories now
Minutes after Apple released its record-breaking quarterly earnings this week, the Associated Press published (by way of CNBC, Yahoo, and others) "Apple tops Street 1Q forecasts." It's a story without a byline, or rather, without a human byline — a financial story written and published by an automated system well-versed in the AP Style Guide. The AP implemented the system six months ago and now publishes 3,000 such stories every quarter — and that number is poised to grow.
Quarterly earnings are a necessity for business reporting — and it can be both monotonous and stressful, demanding a combination of accuracy and speed. That's one of the reasons why last summer the AP partnered with Automated Insights to begin automating quarterly earnings reports using their Wordsmith platform.
You wouldn't necessarily know it at first blush. Sure, maybe reading it in the context of this story it's apparent, but otherwise it feels like a pretty standard, if a tad dry, AP news item. The obvious tell doesn't come until the end of an article: "This story was generated by Automated Insights." According to AI's public relations manager James Kotecki, the Wordsmith platform generates millions of articles per week; other partners include Allstate, Comcast, and Yahoo, whose fantasy football reports are automated. Kotecki estimates the company's system can produce 2,000 articles per second if need be.
""I wouldn't expect a good journalist to not be skeptical.""
Philana Patterson, an assistant business editor at the AP tasked with implementing the system, tells us there was some skepticism from the staff at first. "I wouldn't expect a good journalist to not be skeptical," she said. Patterson tells us that when the program first began in July, every automated story had a human touch, with errors logged and sent to Automated Insights to make the necessary tweaks. Full automation began in October, when stories "went out to the wire without human intervention." Both the AP and Automated Insights tell us that no jobs have been lost due to the new service. We're also told the automated system is now logging in fewer errors than the human-produced equivalents from years past.
"Ten times as many reports every quarter — and no jobs cut"
Before this program was implemented, the AP estimates it was doing quarterly earnings coverage for about 300 companies. Now it automates 3,000 such reports each quarter. Of those, 120 will have an added human touch, either by updating the original story or doing a separate follow-up piece. One such company is Apple; as Patterson notes, that automated Apple story freed up reporter Brandon Bailey to focus on this angled, more nuanced report contextualizing the company's earnings along with quotes from Apple executives. Others include Google, Coca-Cola, and American Airlines. 180 more are monitored to see if a follow-up is needed.
Then there are ten companies that aren't automated at all due to the nuance of their reports — companies like Citigroup and Wells Fargo. Patterson says all these lists are re-evaluated and updated every quarter.
Since the partnership began, elements like business descriptions and forward-looking guidance has been added to the platform's skill list. The next step is expansion — more than 1,000 Canadian companies plus a few elsewhere around the world. Patterson also told us the AP is starting to look at other uses outside of earnings reports.
So no, computers are not taking journalists' jobs — not yet, at any rate. Instead, they're freeing up writers to think more critically about the bigger picture. "One of the things we really wanted reporters to be able to do was when earnings came out to not have to focus on the initial numbers," said Patterson. "That's the goal, to write smarter pieces and more interesting stories."
This story was generated by a Homo sapiens who really wanted to use this Shutterstock photo as the lead image:
原文-中文：
http://j.news.163.com/docs/99/2015020122/AHDCL44R9001L44S.html
英文：
http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/2 ... financial-reporting
http://qz.com/228218/the-aps-new ... er-is-an-algorithm/
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发表于 2015-2-2 01:40:27
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