Chinese Artificial Intelligence TV Anchor brings in a new wave in the TV Journalism industry

Adm Desk Nov 11, 2018

Seems like journalism has reinvented itself as it is no more about just Human intelligence and wit; the TV news industry in China has revolutionized with the world's first Artificial Intelligence TV news anchor that looks like a male human anchor with voice as well as facial expressions of a real person.

China’s Xinhua news agency in collaboration with Chinese search Engine Company Sogou has discovered its first Artificial Intelligence (AI) news anchor. This AI TV news anchor is capable of reading news in voice that resembles a male human anchor and facial expressions that make it look nothing less than a real human. It can read news in a synthesized voice that is customized to resemble the sound of a professional human anchor.

This innovative design of two AI TV news anchors was unveiled at the fifth World Internet Conference in China’s Zhejiang province. These anchors can read in English as well as Mandarin.

As per the reports from South China Morning Post and Xinhua, this new innovation will reduce the cost of daily TV news report as the AI TV anchors are available to work 24 hours a day. The AI TV anchor can quickly generate breaking news and this shall also improve efficiency. This AI TV anchors are a step ahead of humans as this is something humans can’t do.

The AI TV anchors are programmed in such a way that they harness the AI technology to combine images and voices of human anchors to deliver news with “the same effect” as human anchors.

The machine learning (ML) programme is capable of generating lip movements, facial expressions etc that resemble to those of human news anchor. These anchors are bilingual as they are available for both the English and Mandarin news reading across Xinhua’s internet and mobile platforms. This includes its Mandarin and English apps as well as online TV webpage.

According to a report by South China Morning Post Xinhua said the accomplishment was a “breakthrough in the field of global AI synthesis”, revolutionizing the synthesis of real-time audio and video with AI-created anchors in the news field. Search engine Sogou, which also does research and development in AI, is providing the underlying technology for the project.”

It is almost impossible to discriminate between a real news anchor and an AI TV news anchor. The Chinese AI anchor has life-like expressions and delivery.

Xinhua News Agency has stated that it is going to employ AI anchors as part of its reporting team.

In the Promo video the AI anchor stated that "The development of the media industry calls for continuous innovation and deep integration with the international advanced technologies. I will work tirelessly to keep you informed as texts will be typed into my system uninterrupted." The AI anchor is modeled on a real-life Xinhua news anchor names Zhang Zhao. The AI anchor reads the text from the input and can work for prolonged hours.