I hadn’t noticed it until now, but each week, my Fantasy Football team gets a nice matchup recap. Like this one:
I have to admit, it’s very cool. And creepy at the same time. A company called Automated Insights teamed up with Yahoo! this year to do this for each Fantasy Football game. That’s millions of recaps.
While this recap relies heavily on statistics to weave the story, the writing is quite sophisticated, smooth, and generally error-free. The folks at Automated Insights even promise that “we can change the tone of the author from a non-biased AP-style delivery to that of a biased pundit or irreverent fan.”
Clearly, professional writers will need to step up their game. Because there’s a large market for “content” regardless of quality, and lots of space to fill. So what will it take? A unique writing voice? A deeper understanding of the subject (or audience) than an algorithm can provide? Or is this simply the type of service that would only work for writing (like a Fantasy Football game recap) where there simply isn’t a demand for a human being’s time?
All I can say is, I’ve seen much worse writing from humans. I’ve seen better, too. But we have to keep an eye on this.
