​‘World-first’ bionic humanoid robot anchors unveiled by Chinese state media

Less than a decade after introducing the world to the possibility of AI-powered news anchors, China’s state-run media outlet Xinhua has unveiled the world’s first bionic humanoid robots. ​The two life-sized humanoid anchors, one male and one female, were seen taking the stage and addressing the gathering at the World Media Summit in Beijing, Thursday. ​The robotic news anchors were developed jointly by Chinese Robotics manufacturer UBTECH Robotics and the Chinese news agency, with Xinhua holding the complete property rights, it claimed. ​During a forum at the event, the female anchor, named Xinyan, standing tall on a platform, read the opening news after greeting onlookers with a “Hello. “ ​Grooming human-like news anchors To make them resemble human news presenters, Chinese film director Zhang Yimou was brought on board to serve as the chief image designer and led the robot’s visual and physical design. His involvement helped tie the robot’s appearance to conventions across the broadcast journalism, a step further from making them just look human. ​Beyond the physical appearance, Xinhua also equipped these anchors with a bank of the latest current affairs by connecting them with the agency’s AI-powered news platform and intelligent agent, Xinhua Yudian, which was launched in June earlier this year. ​”This arrangement makes the content traceable, secure and controllable,” said Xinhua. ​The claims were backed by UBTECH’s founder and chairman, Zhou Jian, who said the robot’s “brain–expression–control” system retrieves vetted, authoritative news in real time, helping prevent the misinformation and fabricated content that can result from generative AI hallucinations. ​The robotics manufacturer handled the complete manufacturing process, providing the bionic skin — artificial skin designed to mimic the appearance, texture, and sometimes the functions of human skin. They were also responsible for meeting operating system needs, an emotional large language model, and embodied intelligence hardware integrated into the humanoid anchors to interact with the real world. ​Will they replace journalists in newsroom? The next big question is: Will they replace journalists from the newsroom? Xinhua said the robots will perform assisting roles, including presenting information, delivering multilingual content, and interacting with audiences in real time to support the editorial staff. They will not be independent authors of the news they present, the state agency clarified. ​Journalists and editors will remain the central editorial actors in the newsroom, added Qian Tong, director of Xinhua’s New Media Center. ​The agency’s voice was echoed by the forum’s participants, who said that human-led, machine-assisted work is a basic tenet of intelligent journalism. They noted that human judgment, field reporting, and fact-checking responsibilities are critical areas that AI should not replace. ​In November 2018, the Chinese media agency caught everyone off-guard by releasing a video of an AI news anchor delivering the day’s most important global news. ​The technology bringing the anchorman to life was kept under wraps then. The company said it created these “AI anchors” from digital composites of human anchors and gave them synthesized voices to deliver the news. ​Without much information about the technology, it was clear it was much faster than using standard computer graphics to animate each word in real time. ​After watching the video closely a few times, viewers could spot several glitches in the AI system. At one point, it looks like only one side of the mouth is moving. The facial expressions are clearly limited. ​Eight years later, as machine learning and AI technologies have matured, the agency returned to the global stage with what it calls the “world’s first AI news-anchor humanoid robots,” which demonstrated their news-presenting capabilities before an international audience at a forum. The event is ongoing and will run through till November 9 in Beijing, as reported. ​ Get the latest in engineering, tech, space & science - delivered daily to your inbox.