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China's state-run Xinhua News Agency unveiled a deeply creepy artificial intelligence news anchor on Wednesday at the government's World Internet Conference tech expo. The newscaster is a pure virtual mouthpiece in a country with tight controls on press freedom, and its first report this week featuring China's trade show felt distinctly dystopian.
"I will work tirelessly to keep you informed as I will be typed into my uninterrupted system," he said in his opening video at the conference.
Tea Zhang Zhao. Zhang Zhao. But as with all attempts at computer-generated humanity, the virtual anchor is both impressively realistic and yet unsettlingly soulless. Its limited range of motion and expressions becomes more and more timely, while its gray crisp follows and is perfectly hairless. The AI anchor is unmistakably robotic, too, mispronouncing words such as "Panama" and getting the space between words.
But Xinhua appears to know that the anchor is a work in progress, as the AI's sign-off message on its first report emphasized.
"As an AI news anchor under development, I know there is a lot for me to improve. Thank you, "he said.
Xinhua built the AI with China's Sogou search engine and stated in a report that it will allow the news agency to have 24-hour news coverage while cutting down on production costs. Xinhua started using the AI anchor in its broadcast Chinese-language version one on another presenter.
Although other countries have toyed with or animated or even robot newscasters, Xinhua claims This is the world's first AI news anchor that has the ability to improve itself over time through machine learning.
Newsrooms have become more widely available in the United States, with outlets including the Washington Post.
Xinhua did not immediately return HuffPost 's request for it' s long – term plans are for the AI 's anchor or what it' s for the news agency 's staff, including the actual human submit it' s modeled after.
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