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Meet the Editor Who Turned Himself Into an AI News Anchor

Elihay Vidal’s AI avatar looks pretty darn human, and it will read you the latest news from a convincing synthetic media set. But why did he do it?

The AI version of Elihay Vidal looks a lot like the man in real life. I watched him anchor a news broadcast last week and had to stare intently for a number of seconds to confirm I wasn’t watching a real human.

Vidal’s avatar has a human face, human body, human expressions, and even a shirt with the top two buttons unbuttoned. His “Edge of Tech” show runs regularly on CTech, an Israeli tech news site where he’s editor-in-chief, and the visuals and voice are entirely synthetic. To develop the show, Vidal worked with Caledo, a tech company that builds AI news video for news sites looking for a cheaper and easier alternatives the real thing.

After watching Vidal’s show, I wanted to know why he’s allowed himself to be turned into an AI avatar and where he sees the format going. Here’s our conversation, edited for length and clarity.

Alex Kantrowitz: The AI ‘reporter’ using your likeness looks very human, like the real you. How did you turn yourself into that avatar?

Elihay Vidal: I stood in front of a camera and moved around, and the software captured my movements. The avatar’s movements are therefore my movements. My AI avatar is singular. It is my voice, my mimics, my facial expressions, my eyes, and my smile.

When you initially saw the AI generated version of yourself on screen, were you like, wow, that's me?

I showed it to my family, my wife, my children, my parents, and my sister. Everyone said, there’s no way it's not you. The machine just learned my character. The little nuances in there, people recognize them as mine.

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Why make news videos with artificial intelligence avatars, as opposed to just filming them yourself?

We filmed only once for half an hour. I gave a speech in front of the camera. Then, after a few days they showed me my avatar, which was generated by AI. And when I gave the speech, I did it in Hebrew…

But your avatar speaks in English?

Yes, and the English was perfect. I said, No, no, no, no, no, listen, listen, listen, when I speak, I don't speak perfect English. I have an accent. So let's make the accent a little rougher. And so they tweaked the machine and changed my accent. Then I was very, very content with what I got.

Caledo, the company that built the avatar, also has a few off-the-shelf avatars and you can say, I want this one, I want that one. I wanted to be an Asian girl or a blonde guy, or whatever. You can choose avatars from their gallery, or you can do the shoot yourself, as I did.

Is the benefit, basically, that you just capture yourself with the AI once, and then you can deliver a news report, however often you want?

Once you pick an avatar and design a studio, then the editorial work begins. Whenever I want to broadcast a video, I chose a handful of articles published on our site. Then the AI breaks down the articles and builds them into script. They then put the words in our avatars’ mouth. The article text is written by flesh and blood reporters and picking which article will be transformed into TV is done by us, right? The only thing the AI is doing is the technical stuff.

You're an editor of a business publication. What do you think the broader implications are here?

When we decided to do this project, there was a guy on my team we wanted to turn into an avatar. He was terrified. He was terrified by the fact that there's an avatar that is going to replace him, and take his job, and no one will need him, and we can fire him and use his avatar. I explained to him, it’s not that he's disposable, on a contrary, he is a talent, and his face will reach far, far deeper on the web. You approached me because you recognized me from one of our videos, and you called me. Just imagine if they take my my avatar, and make him speak Chinese for me, or Japanese, or French, or Spanish. or Arabic.

But isn't there a risk though, that, the internet fills with AI slop when everybody's making these videos so easily?

When we start every show, we say this is a AI generated content, but it is a based on a human being, a creation. It's something new.

Are you getting an ROI on these videos?

It's a tricky question. We don't have any video platform. We're not considered a video or a TV outlet. But I can say that the viewing activity is going up.

How many views do you get for each of these AI videos?

It's thousands, okay, thousands of viewings. It's okay for us. It's okay at this stage. I'm not seeking much more than that.

Will you allow your publication to continue to use your AI avatar? Let's say it becomes very popular after you retire?

Definitely not.

Why?

Because, as I said at the beginning, this is an authentic reflection of my character, my own character. This is my voice. The mimics and movement is related only to me. It's singular. It's unique. I won't let anyone my avatar without my permission, right?

So you have no desire for broadcast immortality?

No. It's better for them to use someone younger or someone much better than me.

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What Else I’m Reading, Etc.

iPhone16 sales aren’t looking too hot [CNBC]

Huawei’s trifold phone is selling at $7,000 on secondary markets, ahead of release [Nikkei]

Is AI industry a ‘subprime’ crisis, where the benefits don’t justify the costs? [Where’s Your Ed At]

Amazon tells employees to get back to work, five days in office [Business Insider]

Snap’s new AR glasses for developers are an impressive advance [The Verge]

23andMe’s entire board resigns [WSJ]

Reuters and newsire startup EZ Newswire ink an exclusive distribution deal [Reuters] (sponsor)

Quote Of The Week

Don’t ever put me in a situation where I have to lie, because I won’t and it will screw the video.

YouTuber Mr. Beast in a guide to working at his company.

Number of The Week

.50%

The Federal Reserve cut interest rates by 50 bps this week, an agressive start to a new rate cutting cycle.

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