Microsoft is to replace nearly 50 news production contractors on its MSN website and use automated AI software to select news stories, US and UK media report.
The curating of stories from news organisations and selection of headlines and pictures for the MSN site is currently done by news producers contracted through staffing agencies Aquent, IFG and MAQ Consulting,
However, from 1 July 2020, AI will perform these news production tasks, sources told the Seattle Times.
Full-time news producers employed by Microsoft will be retained by the company.
Microsoft said it was part of an evaluation of its business.
The US tech giant said in a statement: “Like all companies, we evaluate our business on a regular basis.
“This can result in increased investment in some places and, from time to time, redeployment in others.
“These decisions are not the result of the current pandemic.”
Microsoft, like some other tech companies, pays news organisations to use their content on its website.
However, it employs journalists to decide which stories to display and how they are presented.
According to the Seattle Times, the contract employees also planned content, maintained the editorial calendars of partner news websites and assigned content to them.
““It’s been semi-automated for a few months but now it’s full speed ahead. It’s demoralising to think machines can replace us but there you go,” one of those facing redundancy told the newspaper.
Some sacked journalists warned that AI may not be fully familiar with strict editorial guidelines, and could end up letting through inappropriate stories.
Some 27 of those losing their jobs are employed by the UK’s PA Media, the Guardian reports.
One journalist quoted in the paper said: “I spend all my time reading about how automation and AI is going to take all our jobs – now it’s taken mine.”
MSN has undergone a number of changes since its launch as Microsoft Network in 1995.
Once a web portal and default internet homepage for millions of personal computers, it offered original content and links to news, weather and sports.
In 2013, it rolled back original news content and began cutting employees.
By 2014, it launched a redesigned version that partnered with other news sites — paying them to redistribute their content.
Today, the news service relies entirely on those partnerships with no original news content of its own.
Curating stories rather than actually generating them made it easier for MSN to increasingly rely on an automated editing system, though several of the terminated employees expressed skepticism it will work as well with fewer human beings to monitor the technology.
Microsoft is one of many tech companies experimenting with forms of so-called robot journalism to cut costs.
Google is also investing in projects to understand how it might work.
