Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google is funding the creation of software that writes local news stories

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 140 posts

Re: Google is funding the creation of software that writes local news stories

#91

Post by dozzie »

bshimmin wrote: post #90
dozzie wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It seems very unlikely that either a human typing this, or a computerized system would make these mistakes (if it learns word associations from a corpus). You underestimate people's ability to make language errors, including spelling ones. Every time I see somebody I suspect is a native English speaher using "it's" for "its", I grind my teeth. (Another instance is somebody using phrase like "as a programmer, the da…

and I can't even point their bad spelling or writing style out There is a certain delicious irony that you managed to contrive such a perfect example of a dangling preposition in the very next sentence after your complaint about a dangling modifier. Skitt's Law in effect once again!

I believe you overlooked the "out" word at the end of the sentence ("[...] I can't even point [it] out"). Or am I mistaken and you meant something else? How should I have written the sentence?

Remember that English is not my native language, and having an already established carreer, I don't have many opportunities to learn the grammar more. I'm bound to make errors and not even know about them, because there's nobody who would point them out.

Re: Google is funding the creation of software that writes local news stories

#92

Post by elihu »

reallydattrue wrote: post #14

Very Relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2Ut5GqQ1f4 Google will one day be the arbitrators of news. If it doesn't fit in their world view, whether it's true or not. Will be removed from the results. I think now is the time to setup a different model and remove their monopoly. Internet freedoms are at stake here. Do no evil? Yeah right.

Google doesn't have any good options here. They can either ignore the problem of fake news, or they can become the arbiters of what is or is not fake news. If the latter, the boundary between filtering out misinformation and actively manipulating public opinion is rather fuzzy.

As a news consuming public, our best option seems to be to not use Google as our primary news filter. Long term, we probably need an entirely different kind of news aggregator that isn't under the control of any single entity as you're suggesting, but I'm not sure what that would look like and how it would work.

Re: Google is funding the creation of software that writes local news stories

#93

Post by mikeyouse »

iak8god wrote: post #67
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #2

I ran across this article while researching a stock and as I read, I kept thinking, "This was not written by a person. This was written by software." [0] I checked the attribution, and there is a person's name on it. Sure, any hack can write and publish and this is probably just another example. But the odd style doesn't even strike me as 'writing the way I think' or writing and publishing quickly without editing. Fo…

That "author" published 87 such articles on July 7 2017[0], and a total of over 8,500 so far this year[1]. [0] https://www.nystocknews.com/author/mack-tyler/page/9/ [1] https://www.nystocknews.com/author/mack-tyler/page/854/

As far as I can tell;

None of the authors are real people, the website is registered behind a anonymization service, there is no company registered with their name, the address of their office doesn't exist, the phone number connects to a 'subscriber not in service'...

If you look at their Google Ad ID, it was used in the past on the now defunct "TheSportsTruth.com" -- which looks like it primarily existed to shuffle people to a supplement site. From there, there are a ton of links to other random affiliate schemes with sports, 'internet marketing', etc. No sense outing anyone, but I believe I figured out who's behind a few dozen of this shitty sites. The NYStockNews site seems to make its money by referrals to some penny stock scam sites.

It's crazy how much 'content' on the internet exists solely to get people to click on links to supplements & penny stock scams.

Re: Google is funding the creation of software that writes local news stories

#94

Post by bshimmin »

dozzie wrote: post #91
bshimmin wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and I can't even point their bad spelling or writing style out There is a certain delicious irony that you managed to contrive such a perfect example of a dangling preposition in the very next sentence after your complaint about a dangling modifier. Skitt's Law in effect once again!

I believe you overlooked the "out" word at the end of the sentence ("[...] I can't even point [it] out"). Or am I mistaken and you meant something else? How should I have written the sentence? Remember that English is not my native language, and having an already established carreer, I don't have many opportunities to learn the grammar more. I'm bound to make errors and not even know about them, because there's nobod…

It should be "I can't even point out their bad spelling or writing style". When the preposition gets separated from its object, it's referred to as "dangling". There's a famous (probably apocryphal) example where Winston Churchill humorously wrote, "This is a situation up with which I will not put." - the humour being, of course, that the arguably more grammatical phrasing sounds absurdly unidiomatic.

If you cc me on all your work correspondence, I'll be happy to point out any grammatical errors I find (for a fee, obviously).

Re: Google is funding the creation of software that writes local news stories

#95

Post by heartbreak »

tokyoSurfer wrote: post #39
kronos29296 wrote: post #15

What guarantee is there that the published news isn't fake? This might start something like viral fake facebook posts. We already have enough of those. Now we have automated fake news generator where you post your own fake news for free. This is what it will become one day. Hope they have something to stop it.

I am more afraid of options that this tool would have. Like fine tune it to be 5% friendlier on candidate 1 than 2. Report news on XXX 10% less than on news YYY. Make people happy. Make people sad. Make people compelling. All this by adjusting few options and changing the wording of articles.

But media companies could already do this with human writers if they wanted to. Maybe they do?

Re: Google is funding the creation of software that writes local news stories

#96

Post by dozzie »

bshimmin wrote: post #94
dozzie wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe you overlooked the "out" word at the end of the sentence ("[...] I can't even point [it] out"). Or am I mistaken and you meant something else? How should I have written the sentence? Remember that English is not my native language, and having an already established carreer, I don't have many opportunities to learn the grammar more. I'm bound to make errors and not even know about them, because there's nobod…

It should be "I can't even point out their bad spelling or writing style". When the preposition gets separated from its object, it's referred to as "dangling". There's a famous (probably apocryphal) example where Winston Churchill humorously wrote, "This is a situation up with which I will not put." - the humour being, of course, that the arguably more grammatical phrasing sounds absurdly unidiomatic. If you cc me on…

OK, Wikipedia has a nice article about it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preposition_stranding

Though my sentence was grammatically and semantically correct, but the sentence I was complaining about was semantically invalid, so it was a little too much from you to point that out (stranding here fully intended).

> If you cc me on all your work correspondence, I'll be happy to point out any grammatical errors I find (for a fee, obviously).

A "nice" offer, but I'll pass. First, I'm not in a position to copy my work correspondence to a random dude from the internets. Second, my work correspondence is mainly in my native language.

Re: Google is funding the creation of software that writes local news stories

#98

Post by bshimmin »

dozzie wrote: post #96
bshimmin wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should be "I can't even point out their bad spelling or writing style". When the preposition gets separated from its object, it's referred to as "dangling". There's a famous (probably apocryphal) example where Winston Churchill humorously wrote, "This is a situation up with which I will not put." - the humour being, of course, that the arguably more grammatical phrasing sounds absurdly unidiomatic. If you cc me on…

OK, Wikipedia has a nice article about it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preposition_stranding Though my sentence was grammatically and semantically correct, but the sentence I was complaining about was semantically invalid, so it was a little too much from you to point that out (stranding here fully intended). > If you cc me on all your work correspondence, I'll be happy to point out any grammatical errors I find (f…

Your sentence was unidiomatic to this native English speaker - "point" and "out" always belong together in a construct like that.

My offer was a joke, but never mind.

Re: Google is funding the creation of software that writes local news stories

#99

Post by tokyoSurfer »

heartbreak wrote: post #95
tokyoSurfer wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am more afraid of options that this tool would have. Like fine tune it to be 5% friendlier on candidate 1 than 2. Report news on XXX 10% less than on news YYY. Make people happy. Make people sad. Make people compelling. All this by adjusting few options and changing the wording of articles.

But media companies could already do this with human writers if they wanted to. Maybe they do?

It is much easier to fine tune few variables than fine tune human writing. Thus human writing will be easy to determine which side it is siding to.

Re: Google is funding the creation of software that writes local news stories

#100

Post by dozzie »

bshimmin wrote: post #98
dozzie wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, Wikipedia has a nice article about it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preposition_stranding Though my sentence was grammatically and semantically correct, but the sentence I was complaining about was semantically invalid, so it was a little too much from you to point that out (stranding here fully intended). > If you cc me on all your work correspondence, I'll be happy to point out any grammatical errors I find (f…

Your sentence was unidiomatic to this native English speaker - "point" and "out" always belong together in a construct like that. My offer was a joke, but never mind.

> Your sentence was unidiomatic to this native English speaker

[emphasis mine]

Fair enough, but I obviously picked up this manner somewhere, and from what I remember, it was long before internet got crowded by people from all over the world, so I think it was from some other native English speakers.

> My offer was a joke, but never mind.

Your joke went over my head so high that I recoiled from the superiority vibe I got from reading it as an actual offer. (I just wanted you to know that, now that it's clear what it was.)

Post reply on HN