Scrimgeour said that when he worked at the Garden Island local paper, it was nearly impossible to find journalists willing to work there and there was no way it could afford to broadcast its news.

Now it seems the local rag has a TV version of its news hosted by two new journalists in a spacious studio overlooking a tropical beach. The first was James, a middle-aged Asian man who appears unable to blink, and Rose, a younger redhead who struggles to pronounce words like "Hanalei" and "TV.”

James' hands can't stop vibrating. Rose's mouth doesn't always line up with the words she's saying.

When James asks Rose about the implications of a strike on local hotels, Rose lists hotels where the strike occurs.

A story on apartment fires "serves as a reminder of the importance of fire safety measures," James says, without naming any of them.

It was not that they were just bad reporters, it was that they were AI avatars crafted by an Israeli company named Caledo, which hopes to bring this tech to hundreds of local newspapers in the coming year.

"Just watching someone read an article is boring," says Dina Shatner, who cofounded Caledo with her husband Moti in 2023. "But watching people talking about a subject -- this is engaging."

Shatner says Caledo claims to analyse several prewritten news articles and turn them into a "live broadcast" featuring conversations between AI hosts like James and Rose.

 While other companies, like Channel 1 in Los Angeles, have begun using AI avatars to read out prewritten articles, this claims to be the first platform that lets the hosts riff with one another. The idea is that the tech can allow small local newsrooms to create live broadcasts they otherwise couldn't

This can open up embedded advertising opportunities and draw in new customers, especially among younger people likelier to watch videos than read articles.

It all looks good on paper. Somewhere, a hacker has to write a story for the AI news readers to read, and the AI is not technically taking someone’s job away. But people living in the area are not impressed because the AI is too wooden and not clever enough.