Algorithms and journalism: the dawn of a new age, or the beginning of the end?
Google has pitched several American newspapers, among them The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal — with an algorithm, known internally as Genesis, capable of writing news stories based on specific information.
Google describes Genesis as a personal assistant that by automating certain tasks, frees up time, and is a responsible use of the generative algorithm.
But senior staff at the papers who attended the presentation have been reported as expressing concerns, saying that the algorithm was overly casual about the amount of work and experience required to produce a news story. The industry is also worried about the impact of tools like Genesis on jobs
More and more companies are already using algorithms to produce content for pages in order to fill them with advertising. Much of the garbage published by the web’s worst offenders, Outbrain and Taboola, at the bottom of some media outlets’ pages are clearly produced by algorithms and automated templates. Whenever you find these obnoxious modules filled with the worst type of clickbait below the pages of a newspaper, you know for sure that its editor does not care much about the quality of the product…
