Microsoft Sacks 27 Journalists In Favor Of AI

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(Edited)

There is still some debate about the impact AI and other technological advancements will have on employment. One camp says that we are going to be confronted with massive amounts of job loss, something that will take a long time to recover from. The other laughs off the claim about technological unemployment, pointing to the fact that technology always created more jobs than it destroyed.

While it is going to take a lot of years for this resolve itself, we are starting to see some of the effects.

Microsoft is in laying off 27 journalists who were responsible for the articles on the Edge browser and showed up on the MSN website.

Around 27 individuals employed by PA Media – formerly the Press Association – were told on Thursday that they would lose their jobs in a month’s time after Microsoft decided to stop employing humans to select, edit and curate news articles on its homepages.

This is not something new in the journalism industry. Many news sites are using "robotic" journalists to produce articles for their sites. It is putting a dent in the number of jobs available in the field.

Imagine all those who recently graduated from journalism school and are trying to embark upon a career. Here we are witnessing the potential elimination of an industry before our eyes.

It is a situation that is only going to get worse.

Many tech companies are experimenting with uses for Artificial Intelligence in journalism, with the likes of Google funding investment in projects to understand its uses, although efforts to automate the writing of articles have not been adopted widely.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/may/30/microsoft-sacks-journalists-to-replace-them-with-robots

One of the beliefs that is being quickly negated was the idea that artificial intelligence would not be able to take over jobs where creativity was required. While it is still not completely to the point, AI is starting to enter the arena to a greater degree.

When mega-technology sets its eyes on a particular industry, things tend to get hairy very quickly. The point AI is at right now means that it is highly likely we see major breakthroughs in the next couple years. This increases the chances that other jobs will be equally as affected.

Part of the danger is the fact that many professions are now broken down into tasks. Companies look to automate tasks, thus reducing the need for as many employees. Over time, as people exit, the remaining tasks are passed on to the remaining workforce. When the next wave of automation of tasks occurs, we see the same thing repeating itself. And so it continues.

This is something to watch over the next few years.

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Its sad, really sad these developments. To my understanding, the tenets of AI technology will phase out human relevance in the affected sectors. This is just the simple truth. Only a selected "few" humans would stay relevant.

Its high time, the populace starts educating themselves on emerging technologies. It's high-time, nations that do not have "tech" as a native resource resort to their root. Africa should turn to farming and give it their best before the AI craze gets to replace farmers.

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This doesn't surprise me since providing news is only one function of a company of like Microsoft, and a relatively minor one. I can really see how it's easy for an AI to trawl other news sites and just sift the news easily enough.

I think the days of income for me as an online educator are numbered for the same reason! It's only a matter of time until the same gets applied to various specifications and educational material is churned out by robots.

This is precisely why I'm moving to Portugal and buying some land to try and be self-sufficient.

I don't have the coding skills to keep up! Even if I did I couldn't compete with a coordinated army of AI professionals programming bots!

I wonder how long I've got until my income is down to nearly zero? Maybe a couple of years?

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People believe AI is the solution but is simply another technology.

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