If you’re a journalist — particularly a sports journalist — and are wondering if, given the small but impressive rise of automated journalism, you will be out of a job soon, we don’t think you have much to worry about. On the other hand, if you’re the kind of journalist that can only crunch out numbers and stats, then consider getting much more creative or look for another job.

The Associated Press (AP) announced recently that it will now be covering Minor League Baseball, all 13 leagues and 142 MLB-affiliated teams, using technology from Automated Insights’ Wordsmith platform and data from MLB Advanced Media (MLBAM). Prior to this, AP had been employing artificial intelligence to report on earnings from U.S. public companies using data from Zacks Investment Research.

This doesn’t mean, however, that journalists have been or will be losing their jobs. In the case of MLB, there were just too many games and not enough journalists to cover them. In the past, AP did not offer recaps for many MLB games, but by bringing in the new technology recaps will be able to be seen on both the news wire, MLB  official club sites and MiLB.com.

AP offers an example of an automated recap of a recent game in the New York-Penn League. What does it sound like? Extremely dry, as you’d expect from a machine, but at least you get the details. Here’s a paragraph taken from that report.

“Despite the loss, six players for Brooklyn picked up at least a pair of hits. Brosher homered and singled twice, driving home four runs and scoring a couple. The Cyclones also recorded a season-high 14 base hits.”

Impressive indeed if all you require is the nuts and bolts, without the emotive asides or wordy descriptions of both sporting brilliance and shoddiness. It also lacks humor, which every good sports writer must hone to be worth his or her salt.

AP Sports had worked with the Automated Insights’ Wordsmith platform for a year prior to the reports being unleashed on the public, asking sports reporters and editors to go over what the AI produced. What, so far at least, it can produce is functional quantitative reporting. What it can’t produce is qualitative reporting.

Robbie Allen, the founder and CEO of Automated Insights, expressed as much in a 2015 interview with Poynter, saying that what Automated Insights offers is not a replacement for reporters, but an augmentation of what is already there. “Our stuff is quantitative related. We’re not able to make a statement about the quality,” Allen said.

The machine serves a purpose, but journalists, don’t worry, if you don’t sound like a machine your job likely has some longevity.

Photo credit: Joel Dinda via Flickr