Will AI be able to reduce the Media Bias using bots? Microsoft hopes so..

Microsoft looks to automating its News Service.

WAIT !!

What is Microsoft doing in the business of News & Media ?

If you didn't know, Microsoft News delivers high-quality news from the world’s most popular and trusted publishers, across web and mobile experiences for Microsoft as well as a growing number of syndication partners.

Its current reach is nearly half a billion people in more than 140 countries and 28 languages.

The company has supposedly laid off about close to 70 News & Media staffers in the US & UK. The workers reportedly were responsible for choosing, editing and curating stories

The concept of AI curating news isn’t new. Google has been trying this for a fair amount of time now.

One staff member who worked on the Microsoft News team said: “I spend all my time reading about how automation and AI is going to take all our jobs, and here I am — AI has taken my job.”

The team working on the Microsoft site did not report original stories but still exercised editorial control, selecting stories produced by other news organisations — including the Guardian — and editing content and headlines where appropriate to fit the format. The articles were then hosted on Microsoft’s website, with the tech company sharing advertising revenue with the original publishers

Automation in news aggregation and curation has accelerated over the last decade.

Facebook has been under pressure for spreading misinformation and disinformation to millions of its users. To avoid being in the glare of errors, FB turned the tide to return back to human editors to help sort and curate news in a new mobile feature.

Humans and machines working in tandem could help Facebook as it tries to bury viral gimmicks and debunk stories that have spread across the platform like wildfire

With the bias increasing everyday, AI is being used to identify fake news. Facebook has shown some amount of fight against it by pulling down fake articles at times. But who is controlling the narrative, thats a question no one knows.

Well, till then, as the spread of fake / curated / biased news continues, it is upto the reader to decipher the rights or wrongs.

Do share your views and claps.

With love, Sandy