Robo-Journalist Reports on Quake – Should Journalists Quake?

Robo-Journalist Reports on Quake – Should Journalists Quake? | Mysterious Universe: "If the first online news story about a recent Los Angeles earthquake seemed to appear extremely fast and feel slightly metallic, it’s because the Los Angeles Times report was written by a robot.



Developed by Los Angeles Times database producer Ken Schwenke, the algorithm called Quakebot automatically retrieves data from the U.S. Geological Survey Earthquake Notification Service on 3.0 magnitude earthquakes and above. The bot then translates the data into a text report, adds a map, creates a headline and pings Schwenke, who reviews it and authorizes its publication under his byline. For the March 17 4.4-magnitude earthquake, this process took all of 8 minutes."