Microsoft has reportedly laid off dozens of journalists for its MSN website as the company is planning to use AI robots to curate news as per new doing rounds in UK and US media. Currently, journalists select the story for the MSN website from the various sites and sources on the web.
Microsoft Brings in Robots to Curate News for MSN
As per the sources familiar with the matter, Artificial Intelligence will be used to handle the various news production tasks.
An official statement by Microsoft
The US-based tech giant said, “Like all companies, we evaluate our business regularly.” It can result in increased investment in some places and, from time to time, redeployment in others. These decisions are not the result of the current pandemic.”
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50 journalists let go
Microsoft publishes news content on its website by paying to the various news organizations. The task of selecting the pertinent news articles was done by journalists until now, which is currently assigned to robots. Around 50 journalists working on the news curations will be relieved at the end of June as per the news by Seattle times.
Full-time journalist to stay
Only the inhouse permanent journalist stay with the companies while the contractors would have to leave. One of the laid-off journalists said, “I spend all my time reading about how automation and AI are going to take all our jobs – now it’s taken mine.”
Another one said, “It’s demoralizing to think machines can replace us but there you go”.
AI not equally capable of understanding editorial guidelines
The laid-off journalists also warned the company that AI may not be as capable and emphatic like humans to curate and select the news as per the editorial guidelines. The process may end up putting inappropriate and irrelevant news on the MSN website.
Microsoft finding ways to use AI for journalism to cut the cost
The tech giant is looking forward to various areas in which they can cut costs through AI-powered journalism. Google, Facebook, and other companies are also experimenting and investing their efforts in multiple projects to see how they can use AI for journalism and news.