Xinhua

History

2020: Use of the virtual leader of news

At the end of May, 2020 the Chinese state news agency Xinhua began to use the virtual leader of news which we will not distinguish from the person on the TV channel. The AI reporter call Xin of Xiaowei (Xin Xiaowei), it is created on a sample of Zhao Wanwei who is one of leaders of state TV channel.

The AI leader uses "technologies of multimodal recognition, speech synthesis, face recognition and animation". He is capable "to imitate intellectually human voices, looks, lip movements and manners".

The state TV channel in China began to use the virtual leader of news which we will not distinguish from the person

Xin of Xiaowei is not the only virtual leader developed by Xinhua. In 2018 the channel debuted at the World Internet conference with two different AI leaders externally identical each other. Language was the main difference of these two versions: one spoke English, and another - on Mandarin. Both models of 2018 were based on an appearance of the real person, Zhang Zhao. After the conference AI leaders began to be used on different newsfeeds, including WeChat, the web page of TV channel, Weibo and application for Xinhua in the English and Chinese languages.

The Russian-speaking AI leader provided at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in 2019 became the following model. It was developed within partnership with TASS news agency and provided to honor of 70-year anniversary of diplomatic relations of two countries.

The Xin Syaoveya's appearance speaks about growth of popularity of AI persons, especially in the field of media. The technology is improved such in high gear that it cannot already almost be distinguished from the person leader. Use of AI leaders can cardinally change a media landscape, but already now it is clear that AI takes roots in the new sphere.^[1]

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