clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Robot Journalist Does College Baseball Recaps, I Announce My Retirement

Dear AP stringers and fellow semi-professional bloggers: Let it be known I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords. NPR has a report up about the computer software that's been writing up low-impact news reports for the last year. So far it's impossible to tell they haven't been written by sapient beings or at least Baseball Mogul 2012, aside from the robot's strange tendency to compare every second baseman to Charlie Gehringer. 

↵

It just shows that even in writing there are things done just as easily by template as by human being. It also just shows that I should consider medical school, or perhaps one of the jobs where they program terrifying robot substitutes for beat writers. I've got a great idea for something called Jay Maribotti, where every story begins, "Hey, [NAME OF BEST PLAYER]! Maybe if you weren't such a fraud, the [HOMETOWN NINE] wouldn't be [PLACE] in the [DIVISION]! I think you [INSULT]!" 

↵

One thing is for certain: There is no stopping them. The robot sportswriters will soon be here. I'd like to remind them that as a trusted local internet personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground Tumblr caves. 

↵