California News Company Will Replace Humans With AI-Generated Anchors

A local news network in Los Angeles, California, has announced a plan to use artificial intelligence (AI) to “create news anchors” starting in 2024.

Channel 1, which The Daily Mail has characterized as an “up-and-coming” news station in Los Angeles, has vowed to be the first U.S. news station to use AI news anchors.

Numerous companies have begun integrating AI into their businesses in recent years in response to hiring difficulties and increases in minimum wage. The increased cost of doing business caused by the rise in minimum wage has prompted business owners to choose AI and technology over actual human employees. While it is unclear if these issues were deciding factors for Channel 1’s plan, it is clear that the rise of AI will lead to a significant loss in the job market for various occupations.

The news station’s decision comes alongside the release of these AI-generated anchors, who may be appearing as early as February 2024 on ad-supported streaming services such as Crackle, Tubi and Pluto.

However, this move may not be welcomed by viewers for a number of reasons, including the inability of AI to mimic real human characteristics.

According to One America News (OAN), “In order to replicate actual human behavior and expressions, a combination of digital duplicates and animated faces is used to generate the AI anchors. However, a closer look exposed other anomalies, including unrealistic hands that display more than five fingers on each hand, despite the life-like hand motions.”

The outlet went on to point out that “AI anchor eyeballs flicker” but “their eyes and faces do not show any noticeable emotion, almost as if the figures have all received an excessive amount of Botox. The figures also display a rather blank expression in general.”

Channel 1 has reportedly planned to obtain the news material for its AI-generated anchors through at least three sources — including joint ventures with other media organizations, hired freelance writers and AI-generated reports from supposedly “reliable official sources” such as government reports and public records.

With many news outlets and networks currently suffering from decreased viewership, distrust among the public and low revenue, the use of AI could save these entities a significant amount of money that they would have spent on salaries for news anchors. One such outlet is Sports Illustrated, which has already been caught publishing articles from AI-generated writers — causing controversy that led to the articles being scrubbed from its website.