Good riddance.
You’re Fired
Hawaiian local broadcaster and newspaper The Garden Island has fired the two AI bots it recently introduced as its new anchors.
As Wired journalist Guthrie Scrimegour — who was also previously let go by the paper — reports, the bots known as James and Rose were let go just two months after making their debut.
At the time, the newspaper made a big fuss about becoming the first paper in the country to adopt AI-powered news anchors.
James and Rose were the product of an Israeli AI company called Caledo, and quickly made waves for their bizarre and unnervingly monotonous line deliveries (as Scrimegour points out, for instance, James used the exact same matter-of-fact tone for a story about a vigil for a labor massacre and a fall pumpkin giveaway.)
The pair also frequently butchered Hawaiian names, according to Scrimegour, and messed up the pronunciation of basic words like “rifle.”
That’s not to mention frequently glitching hands and a terrifying inability to blink.
That kind of uncanniness didn’t sit well with the Garden Island’s audience, many of whom called out the newspaper for replacing human labor with AI.
Almost every video the newspaper uploaded to Instagram that depicts James and Rose was immediately panned in the comments.
“This is so creepy, extremely uncanny valley,” one user wrote, commenting on a story about suicide prevention.
“This ain’t that,” another user wrote. “Keep journalism local.”
Tough Job Market
Meanwhile, the bots’ creator Caledo declared the experiment a success in a statement to Wired, and vowed to expand the tech to other newspapers across the United States.
“I never like to root against fellow reporters, but I’ll admit I was also happy to see them go,” Scrimegour wrote. “While James and Rose did not actively supplant any existing newsroom jobs, I was concerned that the effort diverted resources that could be used on traditional media expenses, like human reporters, photographers, and editors.”
Unsurprisingly, the “severely under-resourced” local paper was bought out by a media conglomerate earlier this year.
Whether James and Rose even managed to save the company money remains unclear. As Scrimegour points out, the newspaper’s parent company appears to have not been able to “sell a single ad on the videos.”
“I wish James and Rose the best of luck in their future endeavors — it’s a tough job market out there,” he wrote.
More on AI journalism: Journalist Alarmed When Newspaper Replaces Humans With Glitchy AI Bot
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