Chinese State-Run TV Debuts Artificial Intelligence News Anchor
Chinese state-run news agency, Xinhua, broadcast its first A.I. news anchor modeled after one of its prime-time anchors, Zhang Zhao. The AI anchor was fashioned as the agency’s English-speaking host and promises it will report the news tirelessly, year-round, and without claiming overtime pay. Ha, ha, that’s a good one – apparently our future A.I. overlords have a sense of humor too.
The A.I. news anchor seems to employ similar technology to Apple’s Animoji, which mimics facial expressions, or it may be similar to a CGI character from your favorite superhero movie that looks uncannily realistic. According to one of its creators, Wang Xiaochuan, the technology could one day be used to have a digital mockup of anyone read the news to you, including your own parents.
But the concern with this technology for use in news media has stoked fears that it could be used to spread fake news and propaganda in a world rife with such issues. Videos implementing the technology to depict world leaders and celebrities giving completely fabricated speeches have circulated the internet recently, though it’s unclear whether these videos have been used to truly deceive anyone yet.
“Not only can I accompany you 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. I can be endlessly copied and present at different scenes to bring you the news,” the A.I. bot claims in the video.
In a world where traditional news media business models are failing due to new forms of consumption and widespread public distrust, this new technology promises to cut costs for publishers who no longer have to pay an actual human, while their bot can run non-stop as long as it has a script.
“The development of the media industry calls for continuous innovation and deep integration with the international advanced technologies … I look forward to bringing you brand new news experiences,” the bot said.
The pioneering of this technology by China is unsurprising as the autocratic country’s news reporting is entirely state-run. The country has taken other similarly Orwellian steps in its technological development, including a social credit score that rates its citizens’ daily behavior. The country has also installed a nearly universal surveillance apparatus that includes millions of CCTV cameras monitoring its citizens with machine-learning AI facial recognition technology.
The fears behind A.I. development stem from the idea that machine learning algorithms could one day lead to sentience and by the time this happens, A.I. will increase at an exponential rate, eventually realizing it doesn’t need humans or that it could enslave us due to a massive discrepancy in intellectual capacity. Others say this fear is absurd as we’ll always be able to unplug it – it’s just a computer after all. Right?
For more on the rise of artificial intelligence and the potential threats it poses, watch this episode of Deep Space :
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Scientists Have Reversed the Arrow of Time in Quantum Experiment
Scientists have reversed the arrow of time using a quantum computer, by reassembling electrons into an original state. And though they’re hesitant to describe their findings as having any implications for time travel, researchers said they believe their simulation has defied the second law of thermodynamics.
The second law of thermodynamics essentially defines time for us, in the sense that as the arrow of time moves forward, the entropy of an isolated system only increases and can never decrease – it’s why we get older and have finite life spans, or why your coffee eventually gets cold.
But physicists at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology say they believe they’ve been able to violate this principle, in theory.
“We have artificially created a state that evolves in a direction opposite to that of the thermodynamic arrow of time,” head of the study, Dr. Gordey Lesovik, said.
By simulating the wave function of a particle spreading out over time, the scientists created an algorithm to reverse that wave, much like reversing the ripples in a pond after dropping a pebble into it.
But as more particles were added to the system, the physicists said the likelihood of restoring order from chaos occurred less frequently, meaning any system that utilizes their method would require a high level of control, like a quantum computer. When two qubits (quantum particles) were used, scientists were able to reverse entropy 85 percent of the time, but with a third qubit only 50 percent of the time.
Researchers involved in the study compared their test to the possibility of striking a rack of pool balls and having it return to its precisely arranged triangular formation, something seemingly impossible in our everyday reality, but now entirely possible in quantum physics.
So, does this mean we might be able to someday go back in time by traveling through the quantum realm?
Unfortunately, that answer seem to be no. When it comes to future practicality the team says this finding would likely be applied to quantum computers to eliminate noise and error. So, not quite time travel, but faster computers – guess it could be worse.
But if they were able to simulate this with quantum physics, doesn’t that mean time reversal is somehow possible, whether it agrees with traditional physics or not? Yes, in fact much of quantum physics is wildly contradictory to physics, and though we’re able to observe these paradoxical behaviors in the universe, not even the most brilliant physicists are able to fully comprehend this disparity or find a unifying theory.
For this we recommend turning to Gaia’s own quantum expert Theresa Bullard and her series Mystery Teachings — check out Theresa’s explanation of this bizarre realm in Accessing the Quantum Gap:
