As we continue our experiments using publicly available AI models (no data is used to train or tune any model) to catalog the stories being covered on television news around the world, a natural question that arises is what kinds of new insights might come for journalists and scholars using these catalogs and why are they useful? We got a pretty spectacular glimpse of the answer and the potential of these new story catalogs yesterday when an AI-powered cataloger using AI-powered ASR transcripts translated by AI-powered translation indexed an announcement of a new AI-powered news commentary program on Russian television that features multiple AI-generated deepfake parody clips and claims to be the "world’s first television program created by artificial intelligence."
From this catalog entry of an announcement for this new Russian television show, we tracked down the inaugural three episodes of what claims to be the first AI-driven human-narrated (AI editorially directing the programming, but a human presenter reading the results to a camera) longform political commentary show on a major television network, potentially offering the first glimpse of where AI may take the future of news programming. Perhaps most powerfully of all, the AI story cataloger caught what a human reviewer rapidly skimming the broadcast missed, demonstrating the tremendous potential of AI-powered cataloging to point human journalists and scholars to stories of interest: in this case yielding a fascinating discovery of this new apparently AI-driven show on Russian television.
Ultimately, we don't know anything more about this series, including how and to what degree it uses AI to editorially curate its broadcasts, but it is fascinating to see how our AI cataloger using AI ASR and AI translation caught what the human missed and directed them to a clip that in turn led to discovering what claims to be the world's first AI-driven news program on a major network that even features AI deepfakes!
Yesterday I was manually skimming Russian television channel Zvezda to assess its coverage of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and noticed a brief clip of what appeared (at the extremely quick pace I was skimming through the broadcast) to be a montage of parody clips of Western leaders followed by the tail end of a candy commercial for a box of chocolates with photos on them and a minor mention of something AI-related, which I initially assumed to be a reference to some AI-related news item in Europe or the US. That brief glimpse of a montage that isn't out of the ordinary for Russian television wasn't enough to catch my eye and I continued skimming through the rest of the broadcast.
It was only when I glimpsed at our AI-generated story catalog for the broadcast, which lists all of the stories found in the broadcast and their start times, that this item jumped right out at me:
TITLE: Neural Network Political Show with AI Host Prepares for Premiere on Zvezda TV Channel.
DESCRIPTION: The first neural network political show is announced, featuring artificial intelligence as the host. The show's goal is to select and analyze "political follies of the outgoing week," presenting the information in a viewer-friendly format. The show will be broadcast on the Zvezda TV channel.
Given that I didn't remember seeing anything substantial about AI when I rapidly skimmed the broadcast and that I was fairly certain I would have read copious news coverage in the Western tech press about the world's "first neural network political show … featuring artificial intelligence as the host", I immediately assumed this was an error and flagged this catalog entry as our first example of major AI hallucination in our cataloging efforts and pulled up the clip to see what might have possibly triggered such egregious hallucination in our cataloger.
And then I watched the clip (machine translation below):
My resemblance to our channel’s host Natalya Metlina is only external. What kind of neural nets must one have? I am the creation of artificial intelligence, entirely tuned to your informational… preferences, so that for all this, this, and this to be observed, my task is to select all the political nonsense of the past week, and to fit it into your heads— like candies in a little box. “PolitUkladchik” on Friday at 18:10 on TV channel Zvezda.
Clearly this catalog entry was no hallucination! Our AI-powered story cataloger had stumbled upon something incredible: an ad for what claims to be the first television political news commentary show on a major network editorially powered by AI. A quick Google search turned up no major Western or tech press reporting on what seems to be a major journalism story: an entirely AI-powered news commentary show on a major television network.
A search did turn up Russian media reporting of the new show, with Zvezda itself describing its new show as:
Смотрите первый выпуск новой программы «ПолитУкладчик» в пятницу в 18:10 на телеканале «Звезда»!
«ПолитУкладчик» — первая в мире телевизионная программа, созданная искусственным интеллектом. Всё самое горячее за неделю! ИИ сам выбирает, анализирует и комментирует главные, на его взгляд, новости, события, факты и действия. Точка зрения редакции может не совпадать с мнением ИИ (но чаще… совпадает). «ПолитУкладчик» — не просто новости, а жёсткий разбор политического безумия от цифрового ведущего, который видит то, что другие не замечают…
#zov #zvezda #телерадиокомпаниязвезда #звезда #телеканалзвезда #политукладчик #нейроновости
Which machine translates roughly as:
Watch the premiere of the new program “PolitUkladchik” on Friday at 18:10 on the TV channel Zvezda!
“PolitUkladchik” is the world’s first television program created by artificial intelligence. All the hottest stories of the week! The AI itself selects, analyzes, and comments on the most important news, events, facts, and actions — as it sees them. The editorial team’s opinion may not coincide with the AI’s (though usually… it does). “PolitUkladchik” is not just news, but a tough breakdown of political madness from a digital host who notices what others overlook…
#zov #zvezda #televisionandradiozvezda #zvezda #tvchannelzvezda #politukladchik #neuralnews
Komsomolskaya Pravda clarifies that the show uses AI for editorial selection (machine translated):
A neural network will become the editor of a new political program on the “Zvezda” TV channel: artificial intelligence itself will select the topics.
All three inaugural episodes are actually available online. Here is the opening description of this past Friday's episode (machine transcribed and translated):
Hello, this is the program PolitUkladchik and I am its host, the number one packer, Natasha, completely created by a neural network. I remind you, my resemblance to our channel’s host Natalia Metlina is only external. I thank her for giving me a voice and feminine charm. My task is— to select all the political nonsense of the outgoing week, committed by the West, carefully sort it and pack it into your heads, like candies in a box. Well, what kind of filling they turn out to have— that’s for you to judge. The main thing is not to get poisoned, not to choke, and not to break your teeth. And today in our little box we have such political sweets…
Remarkably, the connection to AI continues, with the broadcast even containing multiple AI-generated deepfake parody clips like the following.
Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, singing “The girls are standing”, a well-known Soviet song performed by Maria Pakhomenko:
AI-generated Deepfake of Ursula von der Leyen, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy singing and playing in a band:
And this one from its August 29th episode:
Ultimately, we don't know anything more about this series, including how and to what degree it uses AI to editorially curate its broadcasts, but ultimately, it is fascinating to see how our AI cataloger using AI ASR and AI translation caught what the human missed and directed them to a clip that in turn led to discovering what claims to be the world's first AI-driven news program on a major network that even features AI deepfakes!