英语流利说 第18天
带着问题听讲解
Q1: 形容词“stilted”如何理解?
Q2: 你认为“AI 主播”最大的优点是什么?
Q3: 你会如何概括《华盛顿邮报》对于“AI 主播”的评价?
红色表示重点词汇
蓝色表示句子主干
Two news anchors at China's state-run news agency aren't human
The news never sleeps, and neither do the two new anchors at China's state-run news agency.
Xinhua News just unveiled what it's calling the world's first news anchors powered by artificial intelligence, at the World Internet Conference Wednesday in China's Zhejiang province. From the outside, they're almost indistinguishable from their human counterparts, crisp-suited and tidy-haired. While Xinhua says the anchors have the "voice, facial expressions and actions of a real person," the robotic anchors relay whatever text is fed to them in stilted speech that sounds less human than Siri or Alexa.
"I will work tirelessly to keep you informed as texts will be typed into my system uninterrupted," the English-speaking version says in its debut video.
Developed jointly by Xinhua News and Chinese search engine company Sogou.com, the anchors learn from live broadcasting videos and social media and can work "24 hours a day".
The AI anchors are both modeled off real journalists at the agency, Qiu Hao and Zhang Zhao, and perform some basic human expressions, like blinking and raising their eyebrows. They can be "endlessly copied" according to the debut video, thus able to cover stories in multiple locations at once.
Although the AI-anchors are inexhaustible, they're void of decision-making and processing skills and cannot offer the emotional element given by a real journalist.
"As an AI news anchor under development, I know there is a lot for me to improve," the English-speaking anchor said in his first sign-off.
中国的官方通讯社多了两名新闻主持“人”
“新闻永不停息”这句话,可以用在中国官方通讯社的两名新主播身上——它们也从不休息。
周三,在中国浙江举行的世界互联网大会上,新华社刚刚发布了这两位由人工智能合成的新闻主播——据称,它们是全球首例 AI 新闻主播。从外表上看,它们西装革履、发式齐整,和人类同事几乎别无二致。虽然新华社声称它们拥有“和真人一样的声音、表情和动作”,但这两名机器人主播只是单纯地复述事先输入好的文本,所用的语音并不自然,仿真度要比 Siri 和 Alexa 更低。
英文版主播在它首次播报的视频里说:“随着文本持续被输入我的系统,我将一刻不停地为你提供资讯服务。”
这两位主持人由新华社和中国搜索引擎公司搜狗共同研发而成,它们以新闻直播视频和社交媒体为“学习”素材,并可以“24 小时全天候工作”。
两名 AI 主持人分别以新华社的真人记者邱浩和张朝为原形,可以做出人类的一些基本的表情动作,比如眨眼还有抬起眉头。据首播视频的介绍,它们还能用“无数个分身”同时在多个现场提供新闻报道。
尽管 AI 主播们的精力无穷无尽,它们却没有人类的决策能力和思维能力,也无法带来真人记者的那种真情实感。
“作为一名处在研发过程中的人工智能新闻主播,我知道我需要改进的地方还有很多。”英文版主播在首次播报结束时说道。