Speed Reads

Robots

The Daily Show pits robots against journalists, and reporters should be very worried

Some news organizations are already using robots to write the news, and that's only going to become more common as the technology gets better. Computer algorithms "will do, and can do, our work," New York Times columnist Barbara Ehrenreich told Hasan Minhaj on Tuesday's Daily Show. "Prepare to be unemployed, Hasan."

Associated Press Managing Editor Lou Ferrara is less concerned with this development — in fact, he's a big proponent of having robots write the news. They are quicker and more accurate, he told Minhaj — a point Minhaj argued was a bug, not a feature. He ran through some of AP's more egregious (human) errors of the past few years with Ferrara, noting that true or not, people clicked on the articles madly. "Until these robo-reporters learn the value of pageviews, bias, and straight-up lying, it looks like journalists like me are going to have a job," Minhaj said in mock triumph. That is, until Ehrenreich threw cold water on his celebration of media bias. Nothing, it seems, is safe from our robot overlords, not even snark. Watch below. Peter Weber