Reuters builds AI tool capable of writing sentences and pitching stories

Reuters is advancing its embrace of artificial intelligence a stage further with the development of a new tool capable of writing sentences and suggesting story ideas as well as data analysis.

Lynx Insight has been conceived to better differentiate between tasks suited to automation and those which remain the preserve of humans, who will be able to dedicate more time to high value tasks such as interviewing, assessing importance and understanding context.

Already a pioneer in the field, Reuters is keen to furnish its journalists with new tools designed to augment their work and boost productivity in a ‘cybernetic newsroom’– rather than an out and out replacement of its workforce with bots.

Reg Chua, executive editor of editorial operations, data and innovation at Reuters, said: “The real value is using machines to do what they’re good at and then presenting that to humans — that’s the best of both worlds.”

Previous approaches have seen Reuters train algorithms to write short data-centric articles based on sports results, earthquake warnings and financial results by scouring huge datasets, but the new system will simply pass on its work to human editors to make of it what they will.

The burgeoning field of AI research has branched out across the industry with heavyweights such as Xiaomi and Microsoft collaborating on AI, cloud and hardware services.

Source: The Drum

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