Skip to main content current edition: International edition The Guardian - Back to home Become a supporter Subscribe Find a job Jobs Sign in Search Show More Close with google sign in become a supporter subscribe search find a job dating more from the guardian: change edition: edition International edition The Guardian - Back to home browse all sections close Artificial intelligence (AI) The journalists who never sleep ‘Robot writers’ that can interpret data and generate stories are starting to appear in certain business and media sectors Robotic hand typing on keyboard ordinary PC, despite its high performance.
 Photograph: Getty Images Artificial intelligence (AI) The journalists who never sleep ‘Robot writers’ that can interpret data and generate stories are starting to appear in certain business and media sectors Yves Eudes Fri 12 Sep ‘14 11.
17 BST Last modified on Fri 14 Jul ‘17 22.
--
 In practice, “robot writers” – with varying levels of sophistication and autonomy – are beginning to be installed, discreetly, by a few media and other business sectors that generate large volumes of written documents.
 In the US automated writing technology was partly developed by artificial intelligence specialists at Northwestern University in Illinois.
 Professor Larry Birnbaum, joint head of the Intelligent Information Laboratory, is an emblematic figure in this new, horizontal discipline, for he also teaches at the nearby Medill School of Journalism.
--
 “To compose sentences it has a library of rules, words and turns of phrase, taken from everyday English, but also specialist professional terminology,” Birnbaum says.
 For the uninitiated this final step is the most spectacular and the most astonishing, but it is not the most complex part for artificial intelligence professionals.
 “Computers have known how to write in English for years.