Microsoft's replacement of journalists with AI prompts industry fears
Microsoft's announcement that it had replaced dozens of news journalists and editors with artificial intelligence, triggering fears about the loss of media jobs. According to Insider and The Guardian , around 50 people were let go in the US and 27 in the UK , most of whom had been curating articles on Microsoft News, MSN, and Microsoft's Edge internet browser. A UK employee told The Guardian '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 Verge reported that Microsoft had increasingly been using AI to spot trending news stories, change headlines and suggest photos for human editors to pair it with. System 🤖 MSN 🔗 Operator: Microsoft/MSN Developer: Mic rosoft/MSN Country: USA; UK Sector: Media/entertainment/sports/arts Purpose: Automate copywriting Technology: Machin e learning; NLP/text analysis; Neural network; Deep learning Issue: Employment; Ethics/ values Transparency: Governance; Marketing
- Date it happened
- 2020-05-01
- Organisation involved
- Microsoft/MSN
- Product, system or model
- MSN
This incident was imported from AIAAIC and is used under CC BY-SA 4.0. Our additions to it — the structured fields, the translation, the checks against other reports — are published under the same licence.
This is a record of what was reported, not a finding that anyone broke the law. If it names your organisation and you believe it is wrong, the corrections process is free and open to everyone.