If you don't want to be replaced by robots, don't write like robots

Steve Rushin opined in the most recent issue of Sports Illustrated about an online site called StatSheet whose computer algorithms are able to transform game statistics into readable stories (for example, here's the StatSheet Fresno State page documenting recent basketball games).

As you might expect, there are fears profit-starved newspapers will chase automation over experienced feet on the street. But as Rushin rightly points out, if you're a journalist worried about robots, you have bigger problems. Rushin wrote:

"There are two ways sportswriters can respond. We can do nothing and hope that our human prose is seen as a quaint, retro piece of ballpark embroidery, like the Wrigley Field scoreboard or the NFL chain gang, both of which are kept around to humor nostalgia buffs.

"Or we can try to vanquish our robot doppelgänger. [StatSheet CEO Robbie] Allen says the robot is doing us a service, 'writing the kind of stories you probably don't like writing anyway.' "

Exactly.

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