Chinese state-owned Xinhua news agency, on Tuesday, 19 February announced its second AI news anchor that has been created in collaboration with search engine Sogou. The world's first female AI news anchor will be called Xin Xiaomeng and will make her debut during the upcoming Two Sessions political meet in China, People's Daily China reported.
The news outlet's first AI anchor, Qui Hao, was unveiled at China's world Internet Conference in November 2018.
Quartz reported that Xinhua and Sogou have also developed an improved male anchor named Xin Xiaohao, who is more natural and can stand up and gesticulate with a natural mouth movement.
These, however, are not the first attempts by the news agency to integrate Artificial Intelligence into news.
In 2017, a robot reporter named Jia Jia interviewed Wired co-founder Kevin Kelly at an event in Hefei.
The bot, however, was a failed attempt as it was having a hard time communicating smoothly – sometimes taking too long to respond or not making any sense when answering a question.
The same year, the news agency also brought in a 1.2 metre tall robot intern called Inspire.
According to a Quartz report, Xinhua has said that its robotic employees have taken to their roles with enthusiasm. Since launching in November, they have put out about 3,400 reports totalling over 10,000 minutes in reading time. Human TV anchors may have something to worry about after all.
(With inputs from People’s Daily, China and Quartz)
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)