The Associated Press has just added itself to the list of news organizations that will begin using robots to write stories.
By July, the AP hopes to introduce an automation technology that will allow it to publish more breaking business stories and a larger number of earnings reports. Using the technology, the news outlet said, it will be able to go from producing 300 stories to as many as 4,400 stories in "roughly the same time that it took our reporters."
The new technology will not lead to job cuts, the AP stressed. In fact, the news service said it will be "doubling down on the journalism" around the robot-produced reports.
"This is about using technology to free journalists to do more journalism and less data processing, not about eliminating jobs," the AP said. "Most of the staff has been receptive to the effort and involved for the past few months of discussion."
The AP also noted that it has been using automation for much of its sports agate for years. The difference, however, is that the earnings reports will be crafted into actual stories rather than just data feeds.
Robots have become more and more prevalent in the news industry, and their perfect speech and record-breaking speeds are catching people's attention. Japan recently introduced the world's first news anchor robot -- a robot that can "read the news without stumbling once."
In March, the Los Angeles Times experimented with robot journalism when it broke the news about an earthquake in the area. The story was published in just about three minutes using a specific algorithm, making it the first news outlet to report on the event.
(h/t: Poynter)