July 1, 2014
Turns out robot reporters can have a sense of humour
Robots are not only writing financial reports for the AP, but they’re also churning out copy in other news organizations.
USA Today gives a number of examples, such as little league baseball stories and fantasy football recaps.
They’re more sophisticated that I imagined, with some software being tuned for “humour and tone.”
Yahoo, which uses Wordsmith for its fantasy football site, has ordered the fantasy draft recaps for the coming season to include more jokes and snark.For example, a fantasy football team owner may have drafted several players who are not playing on the same weekend because their teams don’t have games. “The draft recap might say: ‘You might as well go to the beach during Week 10.’ ”
Not exactly a gut-buster, but I’ve seen worse — written by humans.
Speaking of robot humour, here’s a prescient joke from 2006:
A robot walks into a bar, orders a drink, and lays down some cash.Bartender says, “Hey, we don’t serve robots.”
And the robot says, “Oh, but someday you will.”
The image at the top is from a website called Robot Cake Tank. Be sure to visit and see the rest of the joke.