Since April 3, the Swiss television channel ‘M Le Media’ entrusts the presentation of the weather to Jade, a presenter who does not exist.
The avatar, generated by Artificial Intelligence, is very realistic, although his voice and gestures are somewhat mechanical.
The “presenter” was not the first choice of the chain, declared its director, Philippe Morlaix, to the French newspaper ’20 minutes’. But in the absence of selected candidates, the chain turned to new technologies.
Criticism was not long in coming: “[Jade] doesn’t talk nonsense, but there is a big problem, it is what only the weather is in audio description” declared the meteorologist and weather presenter on the French channel ‘LCI’, Ange Noiret, in the same.
He insists that the viewer loses the added value and analysis that a meteorologist can provide. ” If a meteorologist speaks in person, the understanding multiplies”, affirms Noiret.
Jade is not the first presenter generated by Artificial Intelligence. In 2016, the Chinese chain Shanghai Dragon presented an avatar developed by Microsoft AI. In 2021, in Kuwait, “Kuwait News” had unveiled a virtual host for its Twitter newsletter.
In those days, the voice sounded somewhat metallic, with little accent and intonation, like what can be heard on translation web pages, for example.
But now, the avatar generated by artificial intelligence could jeopardize the work of the presenters.
The Synthesia IO company, dedicated to the development of Artificial Intelligence, already proposes avatars that can speak 120 languages, including with different regional accents. You only need to write the text and choose the voice and the avatar.
They can already be seen on social networks, and perhaps they will gradually be more present in traditional media in the future. At least that is what the statements of Philippe Morlaix suggest, who does not rule out resorting to AI to “automate other areas of the company”.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project