Ken Schwencke, a journalist and programmer for the Los Angeles Times, was jolted awake at 6:25 a.m. on Monday by an earthquake. He rolled out of bed and went straight to his computer, where he found a brief story about the quake already written and waiting in the system. He glanced over the text and hit “publish.” And that’s how the LAT became the first media outlet to report on this morning’s temblor. “I think we had it up within three minutes,” Schwencke told me.

— Slate

The story was “written” by a program called Quakebot which Schwencke created some three years ago. Here’s the Bot story. While not award-winning journalism, it got the news out.

This LAT story on today’s earthquake “was created by an algorithm written by the author.” https://t.co/M0hzP3HqD1

— Adam Clark Estes (@adamclarkestes) March 17, 2014