As I predicted, somewhere on this blog*, a news station in Shanghai has introduced a robot to be their weather reader. Microsoft has developed the speech software and it is getting a warm reception.
It is already raising concerns that robots may soon replace all the talking heads on the TV news. I called this a while back, noting that one animatronic head is all that's required with only a change of wig, voice pitch, and maybe lipstick to move seamlessly from news to sports to weather.
Since the robot won't say anything that's not downloaded into it, governments like the PRC would be quick to adopt this model. As long as the robot never said anything politically incorrect, he/she could expect to keep the job indefinitely. Of course after 30 years of this and no sign of aging among the staff, viewers might be forgiven for assuming that the government had found 3 immortal demi-gods to do the national reporting.
*My search window seems to have conked out. Please stand by.
*Re installed it. Also corrected typo in title. Spell check works everywhere except in the title bar. Go figure.
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