Fly FM “Hires” AI-Powered Robot Radio Announcer & People Are On The Fence
Aina Sabrina is a virtual radio DJ that is fully powered by artificial intelligence (AI).
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Fly FM became the first radio station in Malaysia to have an artificial intelligence-powered radio DJ named Aina Sabrina.
As reported by Marketing-Interactive, Aina is developed by Fly FM’s in-house team of production engineers and conceptualised by strategic advisor Jake Abdullah. She operates with a full backend team that runs the AI real time for her on the air show, according to Moots, the group network director for Media Prima Audio.
Thanks to her back-end team, Aina can engage with listeners during her show, offer personalised music recommendations and mix music according to the listener’s mood.
“With the introduction of Aina, we are extremely excited to introduce a brand new phase of the Malaysian radio industry, and Aina is the definition of this,” said Fly FM’s content director Sean Matjeraie.
Media Prima Audio also plans to make Aina a full-blown virtual influencer through her own Instagram account, @aina_flyfm.
Malaysians are on the fence
As the first AI radio DJ in Malaysia, some people think this is interesting and regard it as a big milestone in our broadcasting industry. Although she might not get all the info correctly, some people even find Aina amusing at times while tuning into her session.
Apparently, she can even speak Malay a bit.
However, a lot of people are frowning with this breakthrough technology. They feel like DJs are going to lose their jobs in the future if the advancement is going at this rate. Some even mention ethical issues regarding Aina’s looks.
Malaysia’s not the first with an AI-powered Radio DJ
Besides Aina in Malaysia, there’s also another artificially intelligent Radio DJ in Oregon, USA named AI Ashley. She is believed to be the world’s first AI radio DJ, only to debut a week earlier to our Aina. But instead of having a new virtual radio influencer, they cloned the AI to their station’s real midday host named Ashley Elzinga.
We made history as the world's first radio station with an AI DJ! Our midday host Ashley has become AI Ashley! We can’t wait for you to meet Ashley, the world's first artificially intelligent DJ. As to the intelligence of our other DJ’s…we’ll save that for another post 😉 pic.twitter.com/CtlMhYU0IO
— Live 95.5 (@live955) June 13, 2023
Developed by Futuri Media’s RadioGPT tool, AI Ashley sounds identical to the real Ashley. As reported by Techcrunch, according to Phil Becker, the Alpha Media EVP of Content, “Both Ashleys will be working in a hybrid situation where we’ll have traditional Ashley on during some segments, and we’ll have AI Ashley on during other segments.”
If you wanna hear what she sounds like, you can listen here.
Besides that, Kuwait also uses artificial intelligence in their broadcasting system. Instead of a DJ, they have an AI-powered news presenter named Fedha that will be reading online bulletins in their national language.
أول مذيعة في #الكويت تعمل بالذكاء الاصطناعي
— كويت نيوز (@KuwaitNews) April 8, 2023
• #فضة.. مذيعة #كويت_نيوز الافتراضية
• ما هي نوعية الأخبار التي تفضلونها بتقديم #فضة زميلتنا الجديدة؟ .. شاركونا آراءكم pic.twitter.com/VlVjasSdpb
But Kuwait is not the first country to have an AI news anchor. China debuted their first male AI news anchor, Qiu Hao in 2018 and its female AI news anchor, Xin Xiaomeng in 2019. India has also recently introduced their own AI anchor too in April this year, named Sana.
Well, it seems like the bots are on the rise, aren’t they?
So do you think you’ll like Aina?
Honestly, when you think about it, it’s not that weird to talk to an AI-powered DJ. We could just imagine ourselves talking to Siri, Alexa or Google Assistant. Or you could also imagine chatting with the software ChatGPT, which is super knowledgeable, but then again limited to colloquial slang.
What’s different about Aina is she has a cheerful personality minus the robotic voice. She can listen to your music requests, give you questions for giveaways and interact with you live when you call in during her segment.
In fact, on Thursdays, listeners can call in and guess the real singer in an AI Song Contest hosted by her. Winners can get RM150 in cash prizes and some Calpis products as they are the main sponsor for her AI radio show named Calpis with Aina.
You can try and tune in to her show every weekday from 2 pm – 4 pm on Fly FM. Tell us what you think about her. Is she scary or is she cool? Do you think she’ll replace your favourite DJ on the radio?
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