Beijing:
Can robots give journalists a run for their money in the near future? Possibly yes, as a robot journalist has written an article for a Chinese daily for the first time. And, guess what? It took this robot journalist just a second to complete a 300 characters-long article, say scientists.
The article written this smart robot journalist named Xiao Nan has been published in Southern Metropolis Daily based in Guangzhou. The article talks about the Spring Festival travel rush.
Wan Xiaojun, a professor at Peking University, leads the team that is studying and developing such robots. According to him, the robot reporter finished writing the piece in just a second and was able to write both short stories and longer reports.
"When compared with the staff reporters, Xiao Nan has a stronger data analysis capacity and is quicker at writing stories," he said.
"But it does not mean intelligent robots will soon be able to completely replace reporters," Xiaojun was quoted as saying by 'China Daily'.
However, the staff of the state-run media outlets was at unease because of such experiments fearing they might lose their jobs in the long run.
Currently, robots are not too self-sufficent to conduct face-to-face interviews, to respond intuitively with follow-up questions. They are not capable of selecting the news angle from an interview or conversation, Xiaojun said.
"But robots will be able to act as a supplement, helping newspapers and related media, as well as editors and reporters," he said.
