TALKING HEADS
China reveals creepy VIRTUAL newsreaders that offer ‘tireless’ 24/7 coverage
The job-stealing march of robots continues...
CHINA has rolled out "artificial intelligence" news anchors – virtual robots that can report all day long.
The eerily human-like newsreaders are described as working "tirelessly", and are modelled on actual news presenters.
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Chinese viewers were able to watch a digital version of a news anchor at the Xinhua news agency named Qiu Hao.
The newsreader's digital twin speaks with a computerised voice, moving his mouth and face, and even blinking.
During his debut broadcast, the robot presenter said: "Not only can I accompany you 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, I can be endlessly copied and present at different scenes to bring you the news."
Xinhua also showed off an English-language virtual anchor that looked extremely convincing.
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The broadcast took place during China's annual World Internet Conference.
"Hello everyone, I'm an English Artificial Intelligence Anchor," said the virtual newsreader.
"This is my very first day in Xinhua News Agency. My voice and appearance are modelled on Zhang Zhao, a real anchor with Xinhua.
"The development of the media industry calls for continuous innovation, and deep integration with the international advanced technologies.
"I'll work tirelessly to keep you informed as texts will be typed into my system uninterrupted.
"I look forward to bringing you the brand new news experiences."
The technology was developed by Xinhua, working alongside Chinese search engine Sogou.
The teams behind the project used actual footage of human anchors, and then animated areas of the mouth and face.
This was then combined with a synthetic voice – like Amazon's Alexa – that can produce the news in real-time.
It means that reporters can file scripts from behind the scenes, and the virtual anchors will be able to read it out immediately – at all times of the day.
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Of course there are some drawbacks to the tech.
For a start, the news anchors appear very emotionless, and the voice is obviously not produced by a human.
But machine learning technology is advancing very quickly, and making the virtual anchors more lifelike won't take long.
What do you think of this creepy advancement? Let us know in the comments!
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