South Korea’s AI-Powered News Anchor Looks Shockingly Realistic

MBN, a South Korea news channel, introduced the country’s first-ever AI-powered news anchor. It looks unbelievably realistic, and you might not buy it to be an AI-powered duplicate of renowned news anchor Kim-Ju-Ha while considering it the real deal.

The final version of AI-powered Kim Ju Ha is a collaboration between MBN news channel and Money Brain artificial intelligence firm. The news anchor based on artificial intelligence is surprisingly similar to her human version. While having the exact similarities in looks and voice of the famous news anchor, the AI-powered robot also had similar small gestures as Kim Ju Ha such as fiddling with the pen while news reporting.

The 6th November broadcast between the AI-powered and the real Kim shocked and freaked many people as it was difficult to judge which is the real one between the two.

During an interview with Korea Joongang Daily, the AI robot said she was created through a close ten hours of video observation of Kim Ju Ha, which enabled it to perform the way she talks with the exact voice. The AI robot added that it could report news in the same fashion as anchor Kim Ju Ha would do.

Usefulness In Emergencies

The news channel said that AI newscasters will provide a good deal with natural disasters and other emergencies as they are always available, be it day or night. MBN said the new tech would help in reducing the labor and production costs at large.

It is scary news for human news anchors as the tech would decrease their likeliness to get a job. However, experts are of a negating view and say that artificial intelligence would never fully replace their work. Some other experts say the idea of an almost human-looking robot seems overly strange to humans, and the demand by the public for real news anchors would help keep them their jobs.

Experts believe that artificial intelligence cannot cross a fine line where it’s not too different from us and neither too similar. And even if the tech advances to the point where it’s difficult to differentiate between the two, the human brain will reject it once it finds that it’s not real.

The AI-powered Kim is South Korea’s first-ever AI-powered news anchor, but it’s definitely not the first such creation in the world. A few years back, China’s state news agency Xinhua revealed two very realistic-looking AI news anchors. The previous year saw its first female AI-powered anchor, which looked just as real as MBN’s digital avatar.