RISE OF THE ROBOTS
CHILLING footage shows a new hyper-realistic news reader generated by artificial intelligence.
Kuwait News debuted Fedha - a woman with blonde hair and light eyes, sporting a white t-shirt and blazer - as their newest addition to the news team.
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And the robot's name comes from an old Kuwaiti word meaning "silver", according to Abdullah Boftain, the deputy editor-in-chief for Kuwait News.
He said: "We always imagine robots to be silver and metallic in colour, so we combined the two."
The presenter spoke in Arabic: "I'm Fedha, the first presenter in Kuwait who works with artificial intelligence at Kuwait News.
"What kind of news do you prefer? Let's hear your opinions."
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The new usage of AI will allow the news site to offer new content, and they even claim Fedha may develop a Kuwaiti accent.
Not everyone was impressed with Kuwait's freshest newsreader, though, and many responded to Kuwait News's tweet.
One follower replied: "It needs more development to be more than just a talking robot!"
Another said: "Unfortunately, the quality is poor. High quality is available and not expensive."
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Fedha isn't the first AI newsreader - another virtual journalist named Ren Xiaorong is available 24 hours a day in China.
Provided by Chinese state-controlled People's Daily, Ren claims to be able to have the skills of "thousands of news anchors".
The creepily human-like avatar, however clever, can only respond from a pre-written script and also peddles the Chinese Communist Party's official line.
Her creators claim she exists to answer on issues relating to education, health, housing, employment and environmental protection.
However, her talents fall short when you try to ask any specific questions, as you can only pick from a pre-set topic list.
Alongside this flaw, the AI-driven news anchor's responses are extremely aligned with the Chinese Communist Party's ideologies.
Through these virtual Q&As, Ren works to answer questions about government policies while simultaneously teaching users propaganda.
There was plenty of positive responses to Ren on the Chinese social networking Weibo, which is heavily censored.
"This figure looks pretty good! Technology is changing with each passing day," a user responded.
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"If it wasn't for the synthetic dubbing, on first glance you wouldn't be able to tell if this was a virtual person. Will news anchors be replaced by AI in the future?" questioned another.
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