Could Robot Writers Take Over Sportswriters' Jobs?
That's what some students at the Intelligent Information Laboratory at Northwestern University are arguing. Their project, 'StatsMonkey,' relies upon 'crawlers,' which combine key statistics from a game with frequently used sportswriting lingo in order to create their own auto-article. According to the StatsMonkey website, the algorithm first analyzes "changes in Win Probability and Game Scores" to "pick out the key plays and players from any individual game." Then, the robot consults a library of "narrative arcs" to structure the story, determining whether the game was a come-from-behind win, a blowout, or a nail-biter. The two are then combined to form the story, which can be narrated, interestingly, from the perspective of either team's hometown. To demonstrate, the kids had the robot write about an October 11th playoff game between the Boston Red Sox and Anaheim Angels. And, as the New York Times reports, the resultant article wasn't all that bad (even if it did kinda miss the sorta important fact that the Angels swept the Red Sox).
We don't think it's time to sound the death knell on beat sportswriting just yet. Yeah, the demonstration was pretty impressive, and we can definitely see how it could be used to at least supplement or assist individual writers. But sports is much more than box scores and results, especially in a contemporary sportscape where editorializing personalities like Bill Simmons or Rick Reilly are garnering a far greater readership. Every single sporting event has a meta-narrative that has to be taken into account. For instance, there's the fact that, until recently, every Alex Rodriguez postseason at bat was haunted by the spectre of his historical chokes. And that's not to mention his salacious and scandalous personal life. From what we've seen, this breed of robot can't yet claim to fill that role. And we think that's a pretty Major League detail. [From: The New York TImes]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Cecil Jones said 4:58AM on 10-21-2009
If a monkey can do the job of the television reporters, then why not have a robot write sports? The problem is "What are the sportswriters writing about?" There's no reason to read what they say unless it's designed or designated to hurt someone. They don't provide information that is useful from a betting angle trying to protect the integrity of the sport. That's crap. If someone is hurt, report it. If someone is motivated for revenge, report it. If someone has something to prove, report it. A robot is only as good as the information put into it. Garbage in and garbage out. I wouldn't be worried about the robot. I'd be worried about the blogger who has contacts with the janitors, parking attendants, and girlfriends of the players.
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