Chinese state news agency introduces ‘ai newsreader’

The Chinese state news agency Xinhua is going to deploy an ‘ai newsreader’. The presenter is a computer-generated copy of a real newscaster at the desk, and his voice is also based on that of his flesh-and-blood counterpart.

The digital Zhang Zhao introduces herself in a short YouTube video. Although the ‘newsreader’ is reasonably convincing, it is clear to see that a nice uncanny valley effect is going on at the mouth. His voice also sounds like a bored robot for the time being, although that may also be the case with the flesh-and-blood Zhang Zhao.

The presenter is presented as being a form of AI, but it is not entirely clear whether this is the case. What we see is an animated 3D model of a newsreader lip-syncing for the text-to-speech. Nothing in it hints at an artificial intelligence capable of performing certain tasks on its own. His reading text is also entered by people.

Xinhua deploys a total of two of these newsreaders; one for English and one for Chinese, although they probably have the same appearance. The newsreader is immediately deployed on the various channels of Xinhua. According to the South China Morning Post, the AI ​​newsreader was created in collaboration with the company behind the Chinese search engine Sogou.

Japan is also making good progress in the field of robot newsreaders. The ’23-year-old’ Erica should start working as a newsreader in Japan sometime in 2018. However, she is a real robot and not generated by a computer.