James, an Artificial Intelligence Doppelganger, Snags My Former Local News Position
“An AI Bot Named James Has My Old Local News Job”
“Nick Oxford, a freelance journalist, lost his job at the Killeen Daily Herald in Texas this July, part of a round of layoffs at the paper. A month later, he discovered that some of the articles printed under his old byline weren’t his. They had been written by an artificial intelligence named James.”
That’s right folks, aliens haven’t taken over the world yet, but we should brace ourselves as the takeover by artificial intelligence, or as it’s classically referred to as – “The Robot Uprising,” is already well under way. Hailing from Killeen Daily Herald, a newspaper home to Texas, we were all introduced to the concept when a humble AI bot named “James” quietly took over writing duties from Nick Oxford, a previously-thriving freelance journalist.
We exist in an era where stories about job losses thanks to automation aren’t exactly new and shiny. But, let’s just pause a moment to appreciate this. An algorithm has graduated from the assembly lines to the editorial desks. James is not your typical AI bot, he is adding a sprinkle of pseudo-human flair to the old-school world of news illustration. It’s not a machine learning algorithm predicting stock market trends or an automated assembly line crafting Teslas. It’s drafting articles under someone else’s byline!
Although this situation may ring the alarm bells for anyone related to the news industry, spare a thought as well for our dear friend James who’s always up for a challenge, willing to write at any given hour, maintaining the perfect posture and never complaining about the excess coffee intake.
On one hand, we have our traditional journalists who spend years honing their craft, while on the other, a bot that has never seen the inside of a journalism school is churning out articles. No doubt, these are interesting times we are living in. This can put any seasoned journalist into an existential crisis. But take solace in knowing that even though James can put words on a screen, he can’t fully replicate human creativity (yet).
James, the all-toiling, article-generating, AI-bot, is slowly gaining traction, coming to a local newspaper near you. No pressure folks, but the “robot revolution” might just be your new colleague in the neighboring cubicle. And to all the journalists out there feeling a bit woozy from this news – do remember, all work and no play makes James a dull bot. At least we hope so.