I, ROBOT ~ YOU, MORON. How else will automated news work?

Thanks for reaching out... not

"Getting the word out" with regurgitated press releases? Not likely... Believe us, PRs, you DON'T want us to look too closely at your client's firm...

My point is that this kind of computer journalism not unlike robot journalism. An increasing number of press relations people are already asking me to look at their products with a view to “getting the word out to your readers”. Nice try, ladies, but we disagree on what that word should be. You think it’s “Buy!” but I can assure you that, if it’s up to me, it’ll be “Fail!” I’m just naturally bolshy that way.

But come the robotic journalist revolution, all of the bolshy gits and blurb-plagiarists will be swept away. Companies will present their chosen facts, these facts will get slotted together by a robot, and those are the facts that you’ll read – no middleman necessary. This is what governments do already, of course, but let’s talk about that another day, preferably over a pint. Oh, is it your round? Then I’ll have a triple scotch, please.

This leads to my second concern: are those robo-reported facts really facts? I can’t believe I’m even bothering to type this but not everything you read on Twitter is true. In the same way, it does not take a conspiracy theorist to understand that you can do far more harm with false information than spin.

Richard Nixon in the early 1970s famously delivered a speech claiming that he was reducing America’s military involvement in Vietnam and then went back to the Oval Office and actively increased it. In the last Budget speech, UK Chancellor George Osborne claimed that the deficit had fallen when in fact it had risen. It’s hard enough for us poor mortals to cut through the rock-hard self-confidence of brazen bullshitters, so what will it be like for robot journalists?

To this end, the PHEME project continues to excite the interest of European academics – yes, it really is that boring – in trying to find a way for computers to guess when someone is telling fibs online. Don’t get too excited, though, you easily excitable professors reading this. The open source veracity intelligence algorithms are being applied to memes rather than statements: that is, it sets out to identify the moronic gullibility of social network users rather than catch liars in the act of making speeches in the House.

In other words, PHEME is a robot for updating Snopes.com. Oh well.

On a much more positive note, I would like to be the first to announce that this very column will be written by robots, starting from next week. All the preparations have been made. I have written bare bones text in the three alternative formats to which this column invariably adheres: "Things that annoy me", "Things that annoy my wife", and "Someone has sent me a press release and it says something that annoys me (or my wife)".

I have also pre-written a CSV containing a variety of my most commonly used words and phrases, which will be sprinkled throughout the text by a randomiser. They include such classics as “I remember when”, “it still doesn’t work”, “what a dickhead”, “bollocks”, “Apple” and “buggeration”.

Robot journalism is the future, good reader, and your kids will be eating this shit because you asked for it. ®