100 Turing’s Test
words encoded on turning cylinders which pins would cause to drop:
the verses themselves were random, but they followed a set grammatical
pattern.
Clark’s device was something of an anomaly in the history of automated writing and a machine intended purely for entertainment. In
the twenty-first century, the algorithm of writing has not – thus far –
bothered itself much with the activity of composing poetry: a character
in “Studio 5, The Stars” may say at one point that “poetry is a serious
business” but, Rupi Kaur aside, there are few today who make serious
money from it. The industrial automation of writing, however, has become increasingly important, with automatic journalism in particular
becoming big business for a number of organisations. Consider the following two stories:
Rite Aid posts 3Q profit
CAMP HILL, Pa. (AP) _ Rite Aid Corp. (RAD) on Wednesday reported
fiscal third-quarter net income of $81 million.
The Camp Hill, Pennsylvania-based company said it had profit of 8 cents
per share. Earnings, adjusted to account for discontinued operations, came to less than 1 cent on a per-share basis.
The drugstore chain posted revenue of $5.35 billion in the period.
In the final minutes of trading on Wednesday, the company’s shares hit
$2.11. A year ago, they were trading at $8.18.
2
Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway reports a $12B 2Q profit
Berkshire Hathaway Inc. on Saturday reported a $12 billion secondquarter profit.
Warren Buffett’s conglomerate reported a profit of $4.87 per Class B
share. A year ago, Berkshire reported $4.3 billion in net income, or
$1.73 per Class B share.
Buffett has long said Berkshire’s operating earnings offer a better view
of quarterly performance because they exclude investments and derivatives, which can vary widely.
By that measure, Berkshire reported operating earnings of $6.9 billion,
or about $2.79 per Class B share. That’s up from $4.1 billion, or
about $1.67 per B share, a year ago.
3
The second story has a byline for Josh Boak, an economics journalist writing for Associated Press. The tag for the first story, however, is
much more significant: “This story was generated by Automated Insights
(http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment
Research.” A very cursory search on Google News in August 2018 for
the phrase “This story was generated by Automated Insights” returned
about 85,900 results for the preceding year. A very small number of
words encoded on turning cylinders which pins would cause to drop:
the verses themselves were random, but they followed a set grammatical
pattern.
Clark’s device was something of an anomaly in the history of automated writing and a machine intended purely for entertainment. In
the twenty-first century, the algorithm of writing has not – thus far –
bothered itself much with the activity of composing poetry: a character
in “Studio 5, The Stars” may say at one point that “poetry is a serious
business” but, Rupi Kaur aside, there are few today who make serious
money from it. The industrial automation of writing, however, has become increasingly important, with automatic journalism in particular
becoming big business for a number of organisations. Consider the following two stories:
Rite Aid posts 3Q profit
CAMP HILL, Pa. (AP) _ Rite Aid Corp. (RAD) on Wednesday reported
fiscal third-quarter net income of $81 million.
The Camp Hill, Pennsylvania-based company said it had profit of 8 cents
per share. Earnings, adjusted to account for discontinued operations, came to less than 1 cent on a per-share basis.
The drugstore chain posted revenue of $5.35 billion in the period.
In the final minutes of trading on Wednesday, the company’s shares hit
$2.11. A year ago, they were trading at $8.18.
2
Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway reports a $12B 2Q profit
Berkshire Hathaway Inc. on Saturday reported a $12 billion secondquarter profit.
Warren Buffett’s conglomerate reported a profit of $4.87 per Class B
share. A year ago, Berkshire reported $4.3 billion in net income, or
$1.73 per Class B share.
Buffett has long said Berkshire’s operating earnings offer a better view
of quarterly performance because they exclude investments and derivatives, which can vary widely.
By that measure, Berkshire reported operating earnings of $6.9 billion,
or about $2.79 per Class B share. That’s up from $4.1 billion, or
about $1.67 per B share, a year ago.
3
The second story has a byline for Josh Boak, an economics journalist writing for Associated Press. The tag for the first story, however, is
much more significant: “This story was generated by Automated Insights
(http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment
Research.” A very cursory search on Google News in August 2018 for
the phrase “This story was generated by Automated Insights” returned
about 85,900 results for the preceding year. A very small number of