China Unveiled World’s First AI News Anchor

China Unveiled World’s First AI News Anchor: Details, Highlights, Background

China’s state-run news agency has unveiled the world’s first artificial intelligence (AI) anchor that can read the news in English and Chinese. This virtual anchor is designed to be able to deliver the news 24 hours a day.

They have been developed by Xinhua and Chinese search engine, Sogou. They were launched at the World Internet Conference in Wuzhen, China.

The AI news anchor was designed to simulate human voice, facial expressions, and gestures.

The AI news reader “learns from live broadcasting videos by himself and can read texts as naturally as a professional news anchor,”. The simulations can be used on its website and social media platforms and will “reduce news production costs and improve efficiency.”

The English & Chinese-speaking anchors, dressed up in a suit and tie, is modeled on a real-life Xinhua anchor called Zhang Zhao.

Background

In 2015, China’s Dragon TV used Microsoft’s XiaoIce chatbot to deliver a weather report on its live breakfast show. The AI computer program delivered the forecast in a “cute” female voice, according to Xinhua.

Automated reporting has popularised in recent years. The Associated Press wire service is just one major news organization that uses sophisticated computer algorithms to write thousands of automated stories a year.

Advanced software programs scrape sources like corporate earnings reports and baseball box scores and then transform the data into sentences that humans can understand.