Computer news-writers set to replace journalists

Computers may soon phase out news writers of the print and online media if the Quakebots that newspapers like Los Angeles Times use to prepare the storyline based on bare facts.

The Quakebots use algorithms to produce the first version of a story with basic details sans human write-ups.

This could be appealing to the future newspaper managements and, by an extension, novels or anything that could be based on formula.

Some even believe this would be possible in fiction writing as well.

The first such report has been made available to readers online in California with the computer picking up information made available online from the US Geological Survey.

The advantage with the robot journalist is that the machine works faster as it only takes seconds for the computer to drop the data into a template and release it to the newspaper's readers.

Writing software is slowly going to become a normal part of the media landscape, according to Frederik Fischer, a Berlin-based social media expert.

Automated reporting is already prevalent in niche areas such as weather, stock markets and sports, lending credence to the possibility of universal acceptance of the writing software.

US firm Narrative Science is one of the providers of such services, creating documents from data. The Forbes magazine already uses its services for its financial reports.

According to the company, the machine could even generate specific articles for fans of certain teams or players without too much trouble.

The company says publishers are already on the lookout for such a software.

Study has found that computer-generated news was more boring to read, but not to the extent readers would have found if they had noticed that it was not written by a human.

The advantage is that unlike humans, the Quakebot never gets tired and never takes a day off.