Virtual news reader to human-sounding Google Duplex: 5 AIs that impressed and scared humans

Over the past year, AI has taken major roles showing how astounding and scary its potential can be. AI can create fake news tool, beat humans at video games and more. Here’s a look at five AI achievements.

5 ways AI impressed, and scared humans. (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Artificial Intelligence (AI) or futuristic tech as we may call it, is one innovation that is getting bigger and better. AI flaunts the capabilities of technology and how it can mimic or eventually perfect tasks humans do.

AI also comes with possible benefits of making human lives easier. At the same time, this technology also has the potential of risks if entered in the wrong hands. There are many platforms where AI takes part, starting with the most popular device - smartphones. Over the past year, AI has taken major roles showing how astounding and scary its potential can be.

First AI news reader

Last November, Chinese news agency Xinhua unveiled the first AI news reader. Xinhua in collaboration with search engine operator Sogou unveiled the new technology at the World Internet Conference in Wuzhen, China. The AI news reader's face and voice has been designed based on the agency's news anchor, Zhang Zhao.

According to the video, the AI anchor reads out news as it is typed out in the teleprompter. He has minimal facial expressions and lip movements which look quite realistic. The AI news anchor also says that he will "work tirelessly" and read out news without any interruptions.

Open AI's fake news tool

Fake news is currently being fought through machine learning tools by companies like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. But what if there's an AI tool that can create fake news? Elon Musk-backed Open AI can do just that and with just few pieces of information. Open AI can create a seven paragraph long fake news story after being fed only two lines of information.

Google Duplex

Google's Duplex platform is probably the closest to AI being accessible. Google calls it Duplex, a feature that lets Assistant make calls for appointments. Google demonstrated Duplex at I/O 2018, and has rolled out the feature to Pixel users in select US cities.

Through this feature, Google Assistant can have a very natural and human-like conversation to make bookings. Google says that Assistant can understand the nuances and context of the conversation.

ThisPersonDoesNotExist.com

This website uses AI deepfake technology to develop realistic fake faces. It does only when you zoom in and focuses properly do you see the flaws. Created by a software engineer at Uber, Philip Wang used real photos and combined them with AI to create new faces. ThisPersonDoesNotExist.com website refreshes to show a new deepfake face at every click.

DeepMind's AlphaGo

Developed by Google's DeepMind, AlphaGo is an AI programme that plays and defeats Go players. AlphaGo has been around for a few years, and it even managed to defeat the world's best Go players back in 2017. Similarly, OpenAI also had a similar feat in gaming. OpenAI's Dota 2 bots haven't conquered the battle arena game as yet, but it has had its fair share of wins.