Your next news anchor might actually be an AI avatar

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If you already think that all the talking head anchors on nightly news look like robots, things might get even weirder in the future. AI company MoneyBrain thinks you can replace those human announcers with AI avatars, and you know what, they might be right.

Several cable TV companies in South Korea are already using MoneyBrain’s technology for one of their news anchors, like LG HelloVision Corp. and MBN. That enables them to do things like have two shows with the same anchor in the same time slot, one with the real person and the other having an AI-generated version of them. Spooky.

The tech behind it uses deep learning to synthesize a human actor, generating an AI model that can talk in a fairly convincing manner. Once created, all the user needs to do is feed the model its lines, by typing them into the control program. Then the AI turns that into voice and video, and also gives costume choices for use in the finished video.

It takes a lot of filming to create the model, with the actor needing to say over 11,000 phrases so the AI model can convincingly reproduce facial movements for any potential sounds in future scripts.

Right now it’s being used for news broadcasts, but it enables real-time conversations so it can be used for chatbots, education, or interactive advertising.

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Joe Rice-Jones

Maker, meme-r, and unabashed geek with nearly half a decade of blogging experience at KnowTechie, SlashGear and XDA Developers. If it runs on electricity (or even if it doesn't), Joe probably has one around his office somewhere, with particular focus in gadgetry and handheld gaming. Shoot him an email at joe@knowtechie.com.