Chinese news station Xinhua has recently hired a new person to be their TV presenter. Well, ”hire” may not be the best word for it; nor, for that matter, ”person”. Xin Xiaomeng, Xinhua’s newest journalist, is an artificial reality person – a combination of graphics, audio and AI. Xin Xiaomeng is the third AI presenter to ”work” in Xinhua; her two predecessors were both ”males”. The three have so far spend over ten thousand minutes on the air. Impressive for someone who is not real.

Fancy whim of an exotic nation or logical next step in the TV business? Time will tell.