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Replacing Sports Bloggers With an Algorithm

Posted by kdawson on from the something-about-overlords dept.

tesmar tips a report up at TechCrunch that begins "Here come the robo sports journalists. While people in the media biz worry about content mills like Demand Media and Associated Content spitting out endless SEO-targeted articles written by low-paid Internet writers, at least those articles are still written by humans. We may no longer need the humans, at least for data-driven stories. A startup in North Carolina, StatSheet, today is launching a remarkable network of 345 sports sites, one dedicated to each Division 1 college basketball team in the US. For instance, there is a site for the Michigan State Spartans, North Carolina Tar Heels, and Ohio Buckeyes. Every story on each site was written by a robot, or to put it more precisely, by StatSheet's content algorithms. 'The posts are completely auto-generated,' says founder Robbie Allen. 'The only human involvement is with creating the algorithms that generate the posts.'"

10 of 120 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Close, but still not pratical by John+Hasler · · Score: 5, Funny

    I can't imagine anyone using it as an actual replacement for even semi well-written content.

    They aren't. They're using it as a replacement for the output of sportswriters.

    --
    Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
  2. Re:This post.... by gandhi_2 · · Score: 5, Funny

    What makes you say this post was written by a robot?

    --
    THL phish sticks
  3. Re:Close, but still not pratical by WrongSizeGlass · · Score: 3, Funny

    Hard to read? Disjointed? Mentally uncomfortable? Sounds like it could fit right in here on /. ;-)

  4. Help reading by tocs · · Score: 3, Funny

    Now I just need to find a robot to read all these sports blogs to free up time for things I want to do.

  5. Re:Close, but still not pratical by St.Creed · · Score: 4, Funny

    Hard to read? Disjointed? Mentally uncomfortable? Sounds like it could fit right in here on /. ;-)

    A clever attempt, RoboWrongSizeGlass, but not clever enough! Trying to point the finger at humans while sneaking in another templated contribution! Haha! Your plans will never work! :P

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    Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
  6. xkcd by Jazzbunny · · Score: 5, Funny

    Mission. Fucking. Accomplished.

  7. Re:This post.... by bunratty · · Score: 5, Funny

    Please tell me more about this post was written by a robot.

    --
    What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
  8. Re:This post.... by WrongSizeGlass · · Score: 3, Funny

    Please tell me more about this post was written by a robot.

    If I am correct, you are having trouble believing about this post was written by a robot? I do apologize for the inconvenience. Is there anything else I can do for you today? Thank you for calling Dell technical support.

  9. Re:This post.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Do you enjoy your inability to avoid making puns?

  10. Re:tiny issue by maxwell+demon · · Score: 4, Funny

    Tell that to a phone book or other assemblage of facts.

    I tried, but the phone book wouldn't listen to me.

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.