{"id":17102,"date":"2020-06-01T08:52:16","date_gmt":"2020-06-01T08:52:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?p=17102"},"modified":"2020-06-01T08:52:20","modified_gmt":"2020-06-01T08:52:20","slug":"microsoft-sacks-50-journalists-moves-to-replace-them-with-ai-robots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?p=17102","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft sacks 50 journalists, moves to replace them with AI robots"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Microsoft<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Tech giants, Microsoft<\/a> has fired no fewer than 50 journalists under its employ after it decided to replace them with artificial intelligence robots- a move triggered by the economic meltdown induced by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reports say staff who maintain the Microsoft\u2019s MSN website news homepages and its Edge browser have been told that they will be no longer be needed as robots can do their jobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Around 27 people employed by PA Media \u2013 earlier the Press Association \u2013 were told on Thursday that in a month they would lose their jobs after Microsoft decided to stop hiring humans to select, edit and curate news articles on its homepages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One team member said: \u201cI spend all my time reading about how automation and AI are going to take all our jobs, and here I am \u2013 AI has taken my job.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Seattle Times quoted unidentified insiders as saying the company has notified the affected workers that their services would no longer be needed beyond June 30.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From then, artificial intelligence would be used to perform the news production tasks in what Microsoft calls \u201cevaluation of its business\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLike all companies, we evaluate our business on a regular basis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis can result in increased investment in some places and, from time to time, re-deployment in others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese decisions are not the result of the current pandemic,\u201d the company said in a statement, according to the paper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the BBC, Microsoft, like some other tech companies, pays news organisations to use their contents on its website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut, it employs journalists<\/a> to decide which stories to display and how they are presented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHowever, Microsoft will retain its full-time news producers, whose functions are similar to those of the contract employees being disengaged,\u201d Seattle Times added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tech giants, Microsoft has fired no fewer than 50 journalists under its employ after it decided to replace them with artificial intelligence robots- a move triggered by the economic meltdown induced by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Reports say staff who maintain the Microsoft\u2019s MSN website news homepages and its Edge browser have been told that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nMicrosoft sacks 50 journalists, moves to replace them with AI robots » WatchDog Plus Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?p=17102\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Odofin\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?p=17102#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Tech\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?cat=16\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":3,\"name\":\"Microsoft sacks 50 journalists, moves to replace them with AI robots\"}]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Microsoft sacks 50 journalists, moves to replace them with AI robots » WatchDog Plus Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?p=17102","author":"Odofin","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?p=17102#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Tech","item":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?cat=16"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Microsoft sacks 50 journalists, moves to replace them with AI robots"}]}]}},"rttpg_featured_image_url":null,"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"Odofin","author_link":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?author=2"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"<a href=\"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?cat=16\" rel=\"category\">Tech<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"Tech giants, Microsoft has fired no fewer than 50 journalists under its employ after it decided to replace them with artificial intelligence robots- a move triggered by the economic meltdown induced by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Reports say staff who maintain the Microsoft\u2019s MSN website news homepages and its Edge browser have been told that…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17102"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17102"}],"version-history":[{"count":-4,"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17102\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}