This time, CCTV used AI to broadcast news
AI is being applied to the production of news media faster than expected.
Source: Know
Author|Feng Wei
CCTV uses AI to broadcast news.
Some netizens found that in several recent CCTV news videos, the words "AI creation" were marked in the upper right corner:
On March 29, CCTV's "Evening News" used AI-generated videos to describe the background information of migratory birds.
On April 3, CCTV's "News Live Room" also used AI-generated videos when explaining "strong convective weather" and reminding how to do a good job of prevention.
China Central Radio and Television's embrace of AIGC is faster than you can imagine.
From the first AIGC animation "Ode to a Thousand Autumns" in China, to the micro-documentary "The Ins and Outs" that covers the whole translation process with AI technology, to the full-process AI micro-short drama "Chinese Mythology" and the micro-short drama "AI Reads Classics", it has only been a month.
It's not just the main station that is accelerating.
According to incomplete statistics, there may be dozens of AI works released and being planned by radio and television in Shanghai, Changsha, Beijing and other places...... At its most exaggerated, it even reached an average of two days and an "official announcement".
"Kill crazy".
AI is being applied to the production of news media faster than expected.
01
AI+ News: Birds Turning into Penguins?
Let's take a look at the two CCTV news stories and the images formed by AIGC's understanding of the text.
01 Decoding the migration of migratory birds and how they identify routes.
Bird migration is one of nature's most breathtaking wonders, and behind it lies the amazing art of navigation.
Experts said that the current research results of bird navigation mainly focus on two major directions, visual orientation and non-visual orientation.
Visual orientation is the way birds look at the sun, moon and stars that have shone in the sky since time immemorial or those landmarks that are stationary.
Like meandering rivers, sparkling lakes and meandering coastlines to lock in your flight direction.
In this way, a timeless navigation map is drawn, guiding them across the vast sky and across thousands of mountains and rivers.
Non-visual orientation is more mysterious, with new research showing that birds use a mammal-like pineal structure.
It senses subtle changes in the Earth's magnetic field and fluctuations in natural phenomena such as thunderstorms, polarized light, and ultraviolet rays, so as to accurately lock the direction of flight.
The whole news style is biased towards AI animation, from the perspective of the coordination of images and text, the visualizable part of the text material can be basically presented, some close-ups are also relatively clear, and the whole content is spliced by multiple videos of about 3 seconds.
Some images still have obvious AI traces and common mistakes, such as when there is a group portrait of birds, the birds' movements are not clear, the boundaries are blurred, the color blocks are mixed, the movements are distorted, and so on.
02 Strong convective weather is frequent, and emergency knowledge is mastered.
If you're outdoors, be sure to avoid narrow passages between tall buildings.
Because the narrow passage will form a "narrow pipe effect", the wind will increase in the passage, which will bring danger to pedestrians.
Also stay away from poorly installed billboards, street trees with dry trunks, and residential buildings full of debris to avoid accidents caused by falling objects.
During driving, you should pay attention to slow driving and hold the steering wheel tightly to prevent the vehicle from deviating.
The wind is raging, and we can't take it lightly at home.
Place and secure outdoor objects that are easy to be blown off, such as flower pots, and close doors and windows to ensure safety.
Stay away from windows to avoid strong winds that blow sand and gravel through the glass and hurt people.
Experts particularly suggest that the most scientific and effective way to close windows in southern coastal areas or typhoon-prone areas is to use windproof panels to close windows.
In addition, we can also take some precautions, such as preparing emergency supplies such as flashlights, batteries, candles, etc., to ensure that we can live normally during a power outage.
In this news clip, there is little error in the image presentation of AI because it focuses on the distant view of the city, and there are few specific images such as people and animals.
At the same time, in terms of city presentation, AI animation style pictures are used to replace the empty shot materials that need to be shot in real time, saving shooting time, and at the same time presenting a variety of urban styles, and even the emergence of American superheroes, Makoto Shinkai and other painting styles.
The use of AI materials in news clips is undoubtedly an innovation that embraces technology for CCTV.
For the audience, the experience and feelings are even more complex.
02
There are many challenges
In a poll on "how to think about using AI to produce news materials", more than 7,000 people participated, and 65% did not support it.
Why is it so low?
Take a look at the comments:
"I think that although the use of AI synthetic images to produce news is an innovative practice, the effect achieved by the current technology is really not realistic enough, the mimicry effect of the text is not appropriate enough, and it often forms a distorted presentation of reality, and in terms of the content that the news media should present, it is still not appropriate and rigorous. ”
"For example, if you mention a windbreaker in the news, what does the picture have to do with the real windbreaker?
"This kind of news with a reminder + popular science nature, the corresponding picture should correspond to life and be concise and easy to remember, and there should not be too many irrelevant details, this kind of use is for the sake of use. ”
"To be honest, I think this style of painting makes me think it's fake news. ”
"AI has too many unnecessary details, and the more details there are, the more mistakes there are, and it can't convey the key message in the press release. ”
……
Of course, there are many voices of support or recognition.
"I was given two hours to write and animate, which would take a day for traditional animation. ”
"Efficiency, obviously. ”
"The style of painting is changeable, there is an oil painting style, a realistic style, and a feeling of Makoto Shinkai, which is good-looking. ”
……
Duozhi sorted out the comments on the Internet and found that in fact, users did not directly express their opposition to the integration of AI into the news itself, but more about the mismatch or inaccuracy of AI-generated content when combined with news content.
For example, in the expectation of the correctness and accuracy of the presentation of news, especially CCTV news content, there are many subtle errors and inconsistencies in AI videos related to migratory bird migration;
This phenomenon is not much for AI, but when it is used in news videos, the viewer often has very little room for error.
Another example is the exquisiteness, aesthetics, and Chinese characteristics of AI content.
As can be seen from the previous two news videos, their content presentation is similar to that of most current AI-generated videos, and with the increasing number of people who are exposed to AI videos, everyone's aesthetics, accuracy and artistry of the videos will be improved accordingly.
The so-called AI anime, Makoto Shinkai, American retro and other styles will only become more and more difficult to capture the audience's attention and recognition.
Fortunately, CCTV also has a large model that is self-trained.
After the CCTV listening media model jointly launched by the two parties in July last year, one of the new breakthroughs in the direction of AIGC is "Ode to a Thousand Autumns".
That is, large-scale model empowerment, AIGC-assisted production, integrating the massive audio-visual data of the main station and the technology of the Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, applying the laboratory's video generation large-scale model Scholar Dream Building, Wensheng video framework AnimateDiff and a number of controllable image generation, image driving and other technologies, so that "Ode to a Thousand Autumn Poems" highly restores the character shapes, scenes and props in ancient Chinese poems, and realizes the "crossing" from ancient to modern, from paper to animation.
This is also a representative of the AI content produced by CCTV, which has both aesthetics and characteristics.
Perhaps at some point in the future, it will also be integrated into news videos, so that news + AI will have a more vivid road.
As Guo Tong, Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of CCTV, and General Manager of CCTV Company, once said, network audiovisual itself is the product of media technology innovation, and it is necessary to have the enthusiasm and courage to dance in the wind and embrace changes, but not blindly follow the trend, but also to fasten the "safety rope".
03
A new era of "AI journalism".
At the beginning of this year, a screenshot of the WeChat circle of friends purportedly from a senior executive of a main station was circulated on the Internet. This screenshot has made it clear that employees at all levels of the media should use AI to generate content.
Some extreme.
It is not possible to determine whether it is true or false.
However, in the past period of time, from the main station to local radio and television, it has also been speeding up the pace, launching AI-related mobilization meetings, new attempts, new content, new studios and new columns.
Take some of the explorations at the end of March and the beginning of April as an example:
On March 12, the enlarged meeting of the Party Group of China Central Radio and Television Station required that it is necessary to accelerate the cultivation and expansion of the new quality productivity of the main station, actively explore the innovative application of generative artificial intelligence technology in the media field, and strengthen the coordination of technology research and development and program production and application.
On March 15, Mango Supermedia released the AI director "Aimang", who will participate in the show with guests as an assistant director in "We Three".
On March 16, Beijing Radio and Television Station set up an artificial intelligence convergence media innovation laboratory, and launched "AIGC Three Kingdoms" at the unveiling ceremony, reproducing classic scenes such as "Taoyuan Righteousness", "Three Visits to Thatched House" and "Battle of Red Cliffs" through "AI intelligent assisted production" technology.
On March 19, an AI-created short film with the theme of "Spring Equinox Solar Terms" has been broadcast on CCTV News Channel.
On March 21, Shanghai Radio and Television released "China's first AIGC series of public service advertisements", "For Good Because of AI".
On March 22, the CCTV AI channel was officially launched, and on the same day, the micro-short drama "AI Reads Classics" was released.
On April 4th, Guizhou Satellite TV released the all-AI production MV "Qingming Youchun", AI lyrics, AI composition, AI singing and AI scene generation MV, integrating the poetry of the Northern Song Dynasty poet Cheng Hao into it......
From the main station to the locality, from animation to short films, from cultural propaganda to public welfare guidance, although the attempt of news + AI still has various shortcomings, it is also slowly growing.
But there's more than one way to integrate.
Some universities have also taken action to cultivate AI journalism talents.
On March 26, the School of Journalism and Communication of Zhejiang University of Media and Communication released its first AI news:
According to the tweet, the "AI Journalism" micro-major jointly offered by the School of Journalism and Communication and the School of Media Engineering will be open to the whole university in the first semester of 2024-2025.
The "Artificial Intelligence Journalism" micro-major has its own "AI + Journalism" curriculum system.
In terms of curriculum setting, it will cover five core courses, including artificial intelligence news writing, artificial intelligence short video and live broadcast, and artificial intelligence image generation technology.
The first batch of enrollment for micro-majors is mainly for full-time third- and fourth-year undergraduate students and graduate students, and applicants are required to have professional skills such as news topic selection and planning, news interviewing and writing, and new media content planning and operation.
The topic of teaching AI in journalism quickly caused heated discussions on the Internet.
Its emergence means that the development of AI technology has begun to make some domestic journalism schools and majors begin to take the initiative to break the boundary between technology and journalism, and seek new integration and new possibilities.
Wang Lingzi, associate professor in charge of the artificial intelligence news micro-major of Zhejiang University of Media and Communication, said in an interview with the media: "We want to explore with students what kind of disruption and changes artificial intelligence has brought to our industry, and how we should go in the future." ”
When the new media era meets the AI era, the news production process will inevitably be reconstructed, which also brings new challenges to the content creators themselves.
Deng Jianguo, a professor at the Department of Communication at Fudan University's School of Journalism, said: "Technology can make news production more efficient, but the core of collecting and reporting facts will become more and more important. ”
Good content is always valuable.
Share.