HAL is now moonlighting as a sports reporter these days.

Are you generally a cold, emotionless person? Do you enjoy conversations with awkward people who sound like robots? Do you enjoy books that read like a 5th grader's interpretation of a Hemingway novel? Then you're in luck.

A company called Narrative Science has created a new software system that eliminates the need for writers for a variety of newspaper stories that are heavy on statistics. Likewise, it also eliminates the need to have any sense of human emotion in the story, too. It's like HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey, but without the murderous jealousy.

So, let's play a game. Here are three different versions of a baseball game between the University of Michigan and the University of Iowa. Two are from local news reports, and one is from the Narrative Science software: You guess which one loves binary codes the most:

1.) The University of Michigan baseball team used a four-run fifth inning to salvage the final game in its three-game weekend series with Iowa, winning 7-5 on Saturday afternoon (April 24) at the Wilpon Baseball Complex, home of historic Ray Fisher Stadium.

2.) The Iowa baseball team dropped the finale of a three-game series, 7-5, to Michigan Saturday afternoon. Despite the loss, Iowa won the series having picked up two wins in the twinbill at Ray Fisher Stadium Friday.

3.) Michigan held off Iowa for a 7-5 win on Saturday. The Hawkeyes (16-21) were unable to overcome a four-run sixth inning deficit. The Hawkeyes clawed back in the eighth inning, putting up one run.

Let me help you out. One of the above examples uses rapid fire sentences like it's hopped up on premium unleaded gas. The rapid fire example--#3? Shockingly, it's not written by a sports reporter high on six pots of Maxwell House. That would be the software pumping out a story. I know, who'd have guessed software would write such a silky smooth narrative?

The company says that the software is "machine-generated content" trying to become a "less bad writer." Wow, that's a way to make the whole machines-as-amateur-writers sound sexier than ever. Even better, the software was partially created by journalism professors--the same journalism professors who probably decry the lack of jobs for journalists.

Awww, cannibalism can be cute sometimes!