( CNN ) -- Computer applications can drive cars , fly planes , play chess and even make music . But can an app tell a story ? Chicago-based company Narrative Science has set out to prove that computers can tell stories good enough for a fickle human audience . It has created a program that takes raw data and turns it into a story , a system that 's worked well enough for the company to earn its own byline on Forbes.com . Kristian Hammond , Narrative Science 's chief technology officer , said his team started the program by taking baseball box scores and turning them into game summaries . `` We did college baseball , '' Hammond recalled . `` And we built out a system that would take box scores and historical information , and we would write a game recap after a game . And we really liked it . '' Narrative Science then began branching out into finance and other topics that are driven heavily by data . Soon , Hammond says , large companies came looking for help sorting huge amounts of data themselves . `` I think the place where this technology is absolutely essential is the area that 's loosely referred to as big data , '' Hammond said . `` So almost every company in the world has decided at one point that in order to do a really good job , they need to meter and monitor everything . '' Narrative Science has n't disclosed how much money is being made or whether a profit is being turned with the app . The firm employs about 30 people . At least one other company , based in North Carolina , is working on similar technology . Meanwhile , Hammond says Narrative Science is looking to eventually expand into long form news stories . That 's an idea that 's unsettling to some journalism experts . Kevin Smith , head of the Society of Professional Journalists Ethics Committee , says he laughed when he heard about the program . `` I can remember sitting there doing high school football games on a Friday night and using three-paragraph formulas , '' Smith said . `` So it made me laugh , thinking they have made a computer that can do that work . '' Smith says that , ultimately , it 's going to be hard for people to share the uniquely human custom of story telling with a machine . `` I ca n't imagine that a machine is going to tell a story and present it in a way that other human beings are going to accept it , '' he said . `` At least not at this time . I do n't see that happening . And the fact that we 're even attempting to do it -- we should n't be doing it . '' Other experts are not as concerned . Greg Bowers , who teaches at the Missouri School of Journalism , says computers do n't have the same capacity for pitch , emotion and story structure . `` I 'm not alarmed about it as some people are , '' Bowers said . `` If you 're writing briefs that can be easily replicated by a computer , then you 're not trying hard enough . ''
Tech company created program that turns data into stories . Narrative Science has earned a byline from Forbes.com . Journalism experts say machines ca n't tell real stories .