C-3PO is gunning for my job

For once, I’m happy to be a geezer. Oh, I miss the smokin’ hot bod of my youth (I’m pretending here that there was a time in which I had one); I’m not thrilled about seeing grey in my beard; I wish I didn’t know what blood pressure medication is.

But still, I’m glad to be old.

Why? Because I’ve spent the last 30 years or so doing a job I love. Writing. I never get tired of putting words on paper. It’s fun and unlike a lot of other things in my life, I don’t stink at it.

In a handful of years (maybe two hands-full) I’ll retire from the newspaper business. But I’ll never stop writing. 

Younger writers probably will. Because robots will be taking their jobs.

You think I’m kidding, but I’m not.

Nearly ten years ago, some wise-guy techie type came up with a computer program that wrote sports stories. I know this because the program was sometimes used at the newspaper I was working at back then.

All you had to do was plug in scores and a couple quotes from the coach and — shazam! — two seconds later you had a sports story which, though uninspired, was readable.

I was uncomfortable with this in much the same way I might be uncomfortable sharing an office with a dog that sometimes nips. But since I don’t write sports — due to an ignorance of same that is nothing short of legendary — I mostly ignored it.

This, it turns out, was like Poland ignoring Germany just prior to WWII. 

Six months ago, the Associated Press began using a program created by a company called Automated Insights to write many of its financial pieces. I’m not sure how it works, but the system can, theoretically, produce 2,000 articles PER SECOND!

I can’t do half that, and I’m a fairly fast typist. For a human.

The stories, according to the article, are … passable. Not surprisingly, they are less than masterly. But how inspired can a story about stock prices be, anyway?

I know that when I can’t sleep all I have to do is think about the front page of the Wall Street Journal and … zzzzzzzz.

So far, the robots haven’t figured out how to write feature pieces; those “human interest” stories that are my personal bread and butter. But it’s only a matter of time.

One day soon, R2D2 going to be sitting down in front of a laptop and hammering out prose that reads like James Thurber or, at the very least, Mike Taylor.

And that’s the day I’ll be out on my ear, forced at last to get a real job, one in which I’m expected to do real work.

So. I’m hoping that day is at least a handful — or two hands-full — of years away.

After I’ve retired, I won’t care what happens. I’m concerned about the fates of my younger co-workers, sure, but not as concerned as I am about my own skin.

The article I read about this stated emphatically that “no human jobs would be lost” over the deal. 

Then again, I’m pretty sure the article was written by a robot.

mtaylor@staffordgroup.com

(616) 548-8273