China has debuted its newest “artificial intelligence” news anchor, Ren Xiaorong, who promises to provide round-the-clock news coverage for 1 year and 24 hours using a computerized voice.
Ren is a computer-generated anchor who responds to inquiries concerning China’s “Two Sessions” political conference with pre-written responses. Users can choose from four pre-programmed questions, and Ren will respond with a general statement in keeping with the official government position. Users cannot, however, type their own messages to Ren. Ren is currently active on the state-run agency Xinhua. Despite her inadequate skills and fake dubbing, Ren is a great embassy of the fact that news anchors could eventually be supplanted by AI in the foreseeable future.
Endless search to beat ChatGPT
China is scrambling to develop an alternative to ChatGPT, the AI chatbot that is upending businesses. Baidu, one of the most popular search engines in China, has created its own AI-powered chatbot dubbed “Ernie”. However, Baidu’s presentation on Thursday only included pre-recorded footage demonstrating Ernie’s features, leading to its shares dropping.
