It's from a company called Channel 1 (is that one up on CHCH owner Channel Zero?) and it will not only feature A.I. generated anchors and reporters, it promises to also show A.I. made visuals of a news story.

What could go wrong? 

What's really scary is that the test video for this, which you can see here, is a little too convincing. Everything in it is completely computer generated from the anchors to the background workers and the set. The company promises to mark any artificially made footage with a graphic to tell people it's not real. But how long before it just becomes another bug on the screen and you don't even notice it any more?

The company insists there will be lots of behind-the-scenes human intervention. 

"Channel 1 has flesh and blood editors and producers who are involved in checking the accuracy of what ends up on screen. As for the stories themselves, they come from “trusted news sources”. These days that’s a highly subjective term but it is likely to mean established mainstream newswires provided by the likes of the Associated Press, Reuters, Press Association and similar. However, exactly which services are used is not clarified.

 "To explain more let’s allow Channel 1’s anchors to explain: “Here’s what [Channel 1] is not: It’s not fake news. There isn’t a computer somewhere writing its own news stories writing about things that haven’t happened. Our system relies only on trusted news sources to bring together the best journalism on any topic from around the world into a single news program."

Maybe it's because I see my own livelihood threatened by this, but it gives me the creeps. And it makes me wonder how long it will be until certain Canadian broadcast giants we all know and don't especially love, who never saw a penny they didn't want to pinch, will begin to adopt at least some of it for their own newscasts, throwing actual flesh and blood employees out of work?

Channel 1 says it will begin to produce daily newscasts using the technology in 2024.

Channel 1 news: The new AI-generated newscast coming soon