Writing 30,000 articles a month! Will Google's news robot put traditional media out of business?

With the development of artificial intelligence, traditional media are suffering unprecedented impacts.

Recently, the British and Irish national news agency announced that the "news robot" has received a 706,000 euro investment from Google. However, the main reason why Google invested in this project is that PA will be able to create 30,000 "eye-catching" news every month with the help of artificial intelligence writing software developed by Urbs Media, and provide news sources to media across the UK and Ireland.

It can be seen that, in a sense, today's artificial intelligence has not only directly promoted the production of original content from the handicraft stage to the assembly line factory stage, but also in terms of content production, channel distribution, user information feedback, etc., the news industry is also undergoing the most profound technological changes in history.

However, more important than whether news robots will trigger technological changes is whether content entrepreneurs will suffer a devastating blow as a result.

Artificial intelligence reveals industry dilemma: content output is the key to the problem

In this environment where news robots are gradually replacing content creators, domestic new media practitioners have to once again face up to the problems they are currently facing.

For these content entrepreneurs, on the one hand, there are market characteristics such as declining fan quality, declining content influence, and commercial resources being concentrated on top content. This seems to mean that this emerging industry is facing a major transformation.

At the same time, although new media has been gradually recognized by the market, it has to face the problem of continuous content production and lack of innovation ability. This is also a shadow hanging in the hearts of all media practitioners.

According to relevant data, the opening rate of WeChat public accounts has dropped below 5% in the first quarter of 2017, and many public accounts have even shown a negative growth trend.

But in fact, this figure has always remained at around 10%.

Although competition from platforms such as Toutiao, Weibo, and Zhihu must bear some responsibility, the fundamental reason is that the current content entrepreneurs are facing a bottleneck because of the inability to guarantee the efficiency of content production, which has led to the decline of potential in the new content market.

Under such circumstances, it is only a matter of time before these new media personnel are replaced by artificial intelligence.

News robots are not flawless; in-depth articles are still controlled by humans

However, when facing the impact of writing robots, today's self-media industry is not without a chance of winning.

According to relevant information, the news robot invested by Google this time will only use open source data on the Internet to edit news, and provide convenience for regional media, independent publishers and bloggers based on facts.

Using a national public database, they can create detailed news templates on a variety of topics, including crime, health and employment. In addition to the above, they can also imitate the reports of professional journalists according to specific writing styles and wording, making the articles more personalized.

But even so, although news robots can be more efficient than humans due to their advantages in data analysis, they are still far inferior to media practitioners in terms of in-depth analysis and humanities.

On the other hand, this kind of factory assembly line content production is not a “perfect solution.” Although standardized production based on templates and open source has greatly improved work efficiency, it also inevitably leads to the standardization, stereotype and uniformity of content products.

At present, it is still difficult for news robots to replace in-depth reports. In order to write a strong artificial intelligence and in-depth article, the news robot must have the corresponding thinking, attitude and position. However, today's artificial intelligence technology cannot reach the corresponding level.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.