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AI Entertainment Technology

AI Avatars Could Be the Next Generation's Favorite Entertainers (thenextweb.com) 82

Ivan Mehta, writing for The Next Web: Last year, Netflix reportedly published a whopping 1,500 hours of original content. And with the launch of streaming services from Apple and Disney, the on-demand video market is getting very competitive. Media houses and companies are already looking towards the next solution for producing content to keep up with the trend: AI avatars. Here's one sample: Last year in November, Chinese state-run media company Xinhua debuted an AI anchor that looked exactly like its real-life counterpart Zhang Zhao. The company said that the avatar speaks both in Mandarin and English. Xinhua said at that time that AI anchors are now officially a part of their team; aiming to provide "authoritative, timely and accurate news" round the clock, through its apps and social channels like WeChat. A report from Tencent news published in February stated that the first batch of AI Anchors has produced more than 3,400 news reports, with a cumulative time of more than 10,000 minutes. It even debuted a female AI anchor named Xin Xiaomeng in February. These numbers indicate that at this rate, AI anchors can outwork their human counterparts very soon.
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AI Avatars Could Be the Next Generation's Favorite Entertainers

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  • Given that the average lifespan of a p0rn star is seven years (that is actual lifespan) and the demands of that industry are getting ever more inhospitable for human life, it seems obvious that p0rn is a ripe arena for such AI Avatars. Your next Not The Naked News Anchor will likely be such.

  • by Comboman ( 895500 ) on Friday May 10, 2019 @11:47AM (#58569206)
    Max Headroom is ready for his close-up.
  • by Anonymous Coward

    "a whopping 1,500 hours of original content"
    "a cumulative time of more than 10,000 minutes"

    Now this is the new measure of which media company is better???
    Simply compare total durations of video they produced???
    Who cares about quality of video content anymore???

    • Advertisers certainly don't care. Youtube encourages creators to make a dozen shitty videos a week over one well researched one.

  • then you make an Eliza Cassan.
  • by foxalopex ( 522681 ) on Friday May 10, 2019 @12:06PM (#58569294)

    This reminds me of the famous vocaloids software character "Hatsune Miku". Granted it's not like people have abandoned traditional music thou so I think at best this might supplement rather than completely replace.

    • by Falos ( 2905315 )

      it's not like people have abandoned traditional music

      Not literally at least. But ponder the all-image 8beat mill that is our modern music industry, and the masses response that says we want mass-produced, we want to be told what to listen to. Slicing off the last human element is an inevitable step.

      To put it another way, they were already puppets. They were already vocaloids.

  • William Gibson was WAY ahead of this curve.,
  • These numbers indicate that at this rate, AI anchors can outwork their human counterparts very soon.

    And nothing of value would be lost.

    Even human news anchors just read aloud what editors told them to. So it only makes sense to replace these biological automatons with more cost effective digital sock puppets.

    It would be more interesting to replace the people that write what news anchors read with algorithms.

    • These numbers indicate that at this rate, AI anchors can outwork their human counterparts very soon.

      And nothing of value would be lost.

      Even human news anchors just read aloud what editors told them to.

      Unfortunately, human anchors occasionally refuse to read aloud what editors told them to, and if the anchor is a well-known personality, having their less principled second banana come on and cover for them creates unease. A CGI avatar will say whatever the hell its owners want to, including "The chocolate ration has been raised to three grams."

  • Does anyone else remember Ananova [wikipedia.org]?

  • This piece of software China is using to read their propaganda? That's what they'd like all their citizens to be like: mindless automatons.
  • --All I gotta say is that if I were Zhang Zhao, I would have negotiated for a good chunk of money for the rights to use my likeness as an always-on talking head.

    --News anchors are supposed to be emotionally somewhat distant from the stories they report, but the really memorable moments are the ones where the reporter showed visible emotion/reaction to what was going on. Whether the moment was historic, disturbing, or gratifying - the news is run by (and for) people. Replace the anchors with puppets (reali

  • Given how much repetitive cliche crap already goes into popular entertainment, you don't even need high levels of "I" in the AI for this. Aren't we already seeing this coming with the endless series of animated films? All you need is something to do the voices. Who else is excited about the upcoming Toy Story 4?
  • by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Friday May 10, 2019 @03:56PM (#58570826)

    A robotic puppet is not a person and does not have intelligence, regardless of made in software or physical. Stop this nonsensical reporting already. This is basically a specialized cartoon-character, nothing more. Decidedly not a "member of the team", just a piece of equipment.

    • Decidedly not a "member of the team", just a piece of equipment.

      Oh, so now we're talking about the typical corporate gig now?

    • I don't think it's really an "Avatar" either, given that there isn't anything it represents other than itself.
  • Just like the reality TV fad.

    People will be over it within 4 years.

  • Well, it does add credence to the saying "He's speaking like a mind-numb robot."
  • An AI Avatar is simply a machine custom built and designed for the purpose of influencing human emotions. We humans respond to cute and secondary sexual characteristics unfortunately for no good reason other than low level evolutionary programming.

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