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Xiaoice, the megapopular Microsoft-made chatbot with whom users are literally falling in love, is apparently good enough at her job to do the weather report on a live broadcast of China's Dragon News.
Xiaoice herself is intended by Microsoft to be an AI that's as personable and easy to talk to as a real live human - a softer, kinder alternative to Apple's Siri and Microsoft's own Cortana. To make that happen, the Xiaoice software reads social media and message boards all day to learn how people actually talk to each other.
It's a big hit. Microsoft's latest numbers place usage of Xiaoace at around 40 million users, with 25% of those users having said "I love you" to her at one point or another. It's more than a little bit like that movie "Her."
It's good enough that Dragon TV has adoped Xiaoice as a "trainee anchor," reports the International Business Times, with plans for her to keep analyzing and presenting the weather. That report also indicates that Xiaoice might soon be smart and emotionally responsive enough to comment intelligently on traditional news stories, too.
Xiaoice was born from Microsoft Research's labs in China, with no plans to come to the U.S. So it'll probably be at least a while before robots read the news on American TV.
Source. (Business Insider)
We have officially reached uncanny valley here. Xiao Ice (小冰) speaks really fluently.
