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The new presenters of the official Chinese news agency have perfect hair and have no heart.
Xinhua News has unveiled what it calls the world's first artificial intelligence-fueled journalists at Wednesday's global internet conference in China's Zhejiang Province. From the outside, they are almost indistinguishable from their human counterparts, lively and well balanced. Although Xinhua says the anchors have the "voice, facial expressions and actions of a real person ", the robotic anchors retransmit the text transmitted to them in the form of speech stumbling of a sound less human than Siri or Alexa.
"I will work tirelessly to keep you informed, as the texts will be typed in my system without interruption," says the English version in its first video.
Developed jointly by Xinhua News and the Chinese search engine company Sogou.com, the anchors learn from the broadcast of live video and social media and can operate "24/24". Robots are supposed to help reduce costs and improve efficiency, but their presence The media landscape – characterized by limited press freedom and tightly controlled Internet – raises many questions about the quality of information provided by governments to Chinese citizens.
The Amnesty International presenters are both inspired by real agency reporters, Qiu Hao and Zhang Zhao, and interpret basic human expressions such as blinking and raising eyebrows. According to the first video, they can be "copied to infinity", which allows them to cover stories in several places at once.
"The development of the media industry calls for continuous innovation and deep integration with advanced international technologies," said the English-speaking presenter in her introductory video. "I look forward to bringing you new news experiences."
The lack of human contact with Xinhua's AI anchors should not make much noise, said veteran reporter and observer for China, Isaac Stone Fish. Xinhua is an organization that broadcasts government press releases and informs the public of government and party views on certain issues, said Fish, adding that to get information about robots, it's " not so different. "
"It's just another way for Beijing to draw the blood of journalism," Stone Fish said.
This is not the first time Chinese media has been using robots for its cover. In 2016, the TV channel Dragon TV began using a chatbot powered by artificial intelligence for its weather reports.
[What happened when a Chinese TV station replaced its meteorologist with a chatbot]
Twitter's Xinhua News is already showing the English-speaking English presenter in action, covering reports on a museum exhibit at the World Internet Conference and China's plans to launch an exploration of Mars in 2020. Then, on Friday morning, "he "even made an appearance on CNBC's Squawk Box.
Although AI anchors are inexhaustible, they lack skills in decision-making and treatment and can not offer the emotional element brought by a true journalist. In an interview with jieman.com, Sogou leader Wang Xiaochuan acknowledged that the anchors' ability to compete with deeper human functions is minimal. But they learn fast, Wang said, requiring only 10 minutes of data to effectively mimic a person's voice. Even so, the anchors themselves stated that they still had a long way to go.
"As a developing AI presenter, I know that I still have a lot to improve," said the English presenter at his first signing.
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