"Computers write news", is the headline under the left "Briefing" column on the front page of the Financial Times today. The front page teaser says "Thomson Financial, the business data group, has found a way to replace human beings in the newsroom and is using computers to write some of its reports. Page 3"
We can see how this might work. Your average financial story might very simply be composed of a noun (company name or sector), + a verb describing movement in space, + a number, and a few articles. For example: "Dow Industrials Climb 7.84 points to Extend Rally","...a slide in oil prices", "...futures contracts fell 2.5%", "...shares jumped 2%", "...the industrials have risen nearly 247 points" ...oil has plunged off 5.8% to a two-month low". Add a few adjectives like, "cloudy" "troubled", "psychological", "important", or "sunny", and you have the makings of a juicy investment news story if there ever was one.
But we can only speculate. There is no story about about computers writing news on page 3. Indeed, these new details might be hidden away somewhere in the paper, but we couldn't find them in today's FT. We know computers are already capable of generating "news", so what are those computers up to?
