--- title: "Journalist Alarmed When Newspaper Replaces Humans With Glitchy AI Bot" description: "A local newspaper in Hawaii called The Garden Island is using AI to power fake news anchors. Unsurprisingly, they're freaky." date: "2024-09-15" modified: "2024-09-15" authors: - name: "Maggie Harrison Dupré" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/mharrison" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/newspaper-ai-anchors" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" tags: - "ai" - "ai journalism" - "ai-generated content" - "the digest" --- # Journalist Alarmed When Newspaper Replaces Humans With Glitchy AI Bot ![A local newspaper in Hawaii called The Garden Island is using AI to power fake news anchors. Unsurprisingly, they're freaky.]() *One man, war journalist with digital camera at the place of action, in war zone. \Image: Getty Images\* ## Anchor Dropped A local newspaper in Kauai, Hawaii called *The Garden Island* is using AI to power fake newscasters, a [former journalist for the publication reports for ]()*[Wired]().* As human journalist and former *Island* employee Guthrie Scrimgeour writes, the Hawaiian newspaper recently became the first paper in the country to adopt AI-generated news anchors from an Israeli AI company called Caledo. The *Island's* Caledo-provided humanoid AI personas — one of the AI-generated characters is a man named "James," while the other is a woman named "Rose" — star in web and social media-shared videos modeled to resemble a real newscast that "reports" on the paper's latest articles. Their broadcast is titled *TGI Today*. The personas are pretty unnerving. Their movements are inhuman, and every story is delivered in the same exact tone. James and Rose [discuss]() a suicide prevention effort on the island, for instance, with the [same timbre]() as they do Labor Day breakfast specials. As far as efforts to revitalize local news go, in other words, this is definitely in contention for most depressing. And as Scrimgeour points out, the comments section on Instagram seems to agree. "This is so grim," wrote one viewer. "This ain't that," added another. "Keep journalism local." ## Choices, Choices Per the report, the *Island's* investment in Caledo's tech came after the paper's parent company was purchased by the Carpenter Media Group, which owns dozens of local papers across the country. Caledo's founders, a married couple named Dina and Moti Shatner, told *Wired* that their tech offers a more "engaging" way to interact with news. "Just watching someone read an article is boring," said Dina Shatner, according to *Wired*. "But watching people talking about a subject — this is engaging." Is it? Regardless, according to the report, the Shatners claim that Carpenter is planning on rolling more Jameses and Roses out to its many other papers — a goal that raises important questions about where owners of local outlets are choosing to invest their cash (Carpenter declined to comment.) After all, Caledo's weirdo anchors aren't free; per *Wired*, the company's founders wouldn't say how much the service costs for publishers, but argue that new advertising revenue it rakes in should balance out the price. Whether that's ultimately the case remains unclear. But these videos are far from "engaging," and we're sure that human interns in front of Zoom backgrounds could create something with way more actual value to news consumers (while adding an entry-level role to their résumé to boot.) But instead of [investing in local human journalists](), the *Island* is simply paying to show its readers fake ones. **More on AI and local news:** [*News Site Says It's Using to AI to Crank Out Articles Bylined by Fake Racially Diverse Writers in a Very Responsible Way*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've reported extensively on the rise of AI as a cultural and business force shaping the media industry, and more broadly how those dynamics are changing how we all consume and share information and relate to one another. I'm also fascinated by public health policy and ethics, the role of emerging tech in politics and governance — and the powerful people and forces at those intersections — climate change, and the environment. My investigation on Sports Illustrated's use of AI-generated authors with fictional biographies won a 2024 Mirror Award for "Best Story on Media Coverage of Artificial Intelligence in Journalism and the Media" from Syracuse University's SI Newhouse School, I contributed to Niemen Lab's 2025 Predictions for Journalism series, and I've discussed my work for Futurism during appearances on NPR, CNN, the BBC, the CBC, and more. I grew up in rural Pennsylvania and attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where I played Division I field hockey for the Minutewomen as a midfielder. Since then, I've lived in New Orleans, Louisiana and Manhattan, New York. I spend my free time running, reading, perusing archival fashion, and searching for the world’s best negroni. I also have a debonair tuxedo cat, Westley, who's named after "The Princess Bride." ### Author social links [Bluesky]()