112 Turing’s Test
discovered that there was a correlation between this increased reporting
and the volume of trade taking place as more and more readers started
to take interest in previously neglected companies.
56
The benefits to Associated Press from their use of Wordsmith were
very clear as well: the amount of time required to analyse quarterly reports, as well as restricting the number of stories that could be published, tied up journalists who would otherwise be engaging in other
activities. Within two years, AP was reporting that 20 per cent of their
time had been freed up from such reports:
57
more significantly, considering the twelvefold increase in reporting covered by AP, rather than simply replacing journalists with software, they appear to have been used to
fine-tune the algorithm and templates as data are used to generate copy.
In a report from early 2018, Laura Pressman from Ai observed that a
great deal of work had been involved in setting up Wordsmith to fit into
both AP’s workflows and to be able to use data from Zacks Investment
Research, which provided Associated Press with the raw information it
required for its stories.
58
Both AP and Ai were keen, at least in the first
years of the project, to emphasise that no job losses followed this move
into automated journalism.
Wordsmith operates according to rule-based instructions that operate on highly structured data that can branch into several choices of
sentence and paragraph structure depending on the format of the input. Thus, for example, information from a three-month period (common for quarterly reports) will generate sentences remarking on upward
or downward trends in share prices depending on whether percentage
changes are greater than or lesser than zero. As the system was being
set up with AP, its journalists constantly monitored output for a period
of two months, making suggestions to improve sentences to improve the
quality of auto-summaries. As Wordsmith is now more widely available,
it is possible to engage with the software as a service online at wordsmith.automatedinsights.com. When automating stories, the workflow
breaks down into the following categories:
• The source of data that will be used: if this is not being generated
in-house by researchers or data scientists, but instead pulled from
a variety of third-party sources or via APIs, then it is important to
have a developer who can ensure that such data are formatted and
presented consistently for Wordsmith to work with.
• Those responsible for preparing the template: in this instance, it is
recommended that the writer(s) of a template are familiar with the
data being used so that they can understand how it will be employed
to create particular narratives.
• Those responsible for publishing the narrative: typically, there will
be a developer responsible for working with the Wordsmith API and
the organisation’s website.
discovered that there was a correlation between this increased reporting
and the volume of trade taking place as more and more readers started
to take interest in previously neglected companies.
56
The benefits to Associated Press from their use of Wordsmith were
very clear as well: the amount of time required to analyse quarterly reports, as well as restricting the number of stories that could be published, tied up journalists who would otherwise be engaging in other
activities. Within two years, AP was reporting that 20 per cent of their
time had been freed up from such reports:
57
more significantly, considering the twelvefold increase in reporting covered by AP, rather than simply replacing journalists with software, they appear to have been used to
fine-tune the algorithm and templates as data are used to generate copy.
In a report from early 2018, Laura Pressman from Ai observed that a
great deal of work had been involved in setting up Wordsmith to fit into
both AP’s workflows and to be able to use data from Zacks Investment
Research, which provided Associated Press with the raw information it
required for its stories.
58
Both AP and Ai were keen, at least in the first
years of the project, to emphasise that no job losses followed this move
into automated journalism.
Wordsmith operates according to rule-based instructions that operate on highly structured data that can branch into several choices of
sentence and paragraph structure depending on the format of the input. Thus, for example, information from a three-month period (common for quarterly reports) will generate sentences remarking on upward
or downward trends in share prices depending on whether percentage
changes are greater than or lesser than zero. As the system was being
set up with AP, its journalists constantly monitored output for a period
of two months, making suggestions to improve sentences to improve the
quality of auto-summaries. As Wordsmith is now more widely available,
it is possible to engage with the software as a service online at wordsmith.automatedinsights.com. When automating stories, the workflow
breaks down into the following categories:
• The source of data that will be used: if this is not being generated
in-house by researchers or data scientists, but instead pulled from
a variety of third-party sources or via APIs, then it is important to
have a developer who can ensure that such data are formatted and
presented consistently for Wordsmith to work with.
• Those responsible for preparing the template: in this instance, it is
recommended that the writer(s) of a template are familiar with the
data being used so that they can understand how it will be employed
to create particular narratives.
• Those responsible for publishing the narrative: typically, there will
be a developer responsible for working with the Wordsmith API and
the organisation’s website.