The Role of Computers in Writing - According to a report(Harnessing Automation in the Future ) by management consultant McKinsey (experts in Automation) the future role of computers in writing is as follows:
Writers and Authors
13% of your job can be done by a robot
Your job is safer than 85.4% of jobs
Tasks a robot can do
• Train others on work processes
• Write material for artistic or entertainment purposes
Tasks a robot can’t do
• Coordinate artistic activities
• Collaborate with others to prepare or perform artistic productions
• Promote products, activities, or organizations
• Confer with clients to determine needs
• Discuss production content and progress with others
• Collaborate with others in marketing activities
• Present work to clients for approval
• Write advertising or promotional material
• Conduct research to inform art, designs, or other work
• Determine presentation subjects or content
• Develop promotional strategies or plans
• Edit written materials
• Monitor current trends
• Obtain copyrights or other legal permissions
• Conduct market research
This is what experts say computers can and can not take over in writing. Yet, in my day-to-day experience I am finding that some of what they say can be done isn’t and some of what they say can’t be done is being done by the computer.
Let’s take • Edit written materials and examine it closer. There are spell checkers and grammar aids galore in our world, many of us use these tools and have shared resources for this type of specific automation of work. So, if what I see as every day and obvious allready being done, why do the experts in the field of automation feel the opposite? Is it because the level of automation has peaked and what we have today will be the pinnacle achieved 100 years from now?
I think their claim that computer automation could take over the writing of entertainment worries me the most - Can a computer automate the CoG guidelines and come out with an entertainment product as good as our human authors currently produce? Or is it possible, that it is because humans break such formulas and rules that entertainment writing is accomplished?
Will computers be churning out If games 10 years from now?
These are the people that our societies are relying upon for road-maps of future investments and training, education and governmental support - are they on to something that will cause the human writer to disappear from producing entertainment products and regulate us to be editors for computer writers?