1/15/2022- 1:06 p.m.
The new anchors at China’s state-run news agency have perfect hair and no pulse.
Xinhua News just unveiled what it is calling the world’s first news anchors powered by artificial intelligence, at the World Internet Conference on Wednesday in China’s Zhejiang province.
From the outside, they are almost indistinguishable from their human counterparts, crisp-suited and even-keeled.
Although Xinhua says the anchors have the “voice, facial expressions and actions of a real person,” the robotic anchors relay whatever text is fed to them in stilted speech that sounds less human than Siri or Alexa.
“I will work tirelessly to keep you informed as texts will be typed into my system uninterrupted,” the English-speaking version says in its debut video.
