A video of an AI bus stop announcer has sparked debate among Londoners, with some describing it as something you'd see in an episode of Black Mirror amid public fears about a dystopian future of artificial intelligence.
The “proof of concept” video, captioned “AI Faces at London Bus Stops?”, fooled many TikTok users into believing Transport for London had deployed the technology at London bus stops. In the video, a woman is seen announcing to passengers the stop times, route names, and final destinations of each bus.
While this may be confusing to some, many viewers were quick to point out that the video was clearly generated by AI.
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“Wow that's so real. Not photoshopped at all,” one person wrote mockingly, while another joked: “Yeah let's make the AI face say things that we can perfectly read off the screen.”
The video was created using the Synthesia platform, which creates videos with AI avatars and narration, and used a bus stop on Jamaica Road near London Bridge as an example of the idea, but many were left confused as to how useful it would actually be.
One viewer pointed out that while this would be ideal for the hearing impaired, who can read the announcer's lips, it's not necessarily necessary for electronic bus timetables in bus stops, but another said that while it might be useful for the visually impaired, it's unclear why AI is needed rather than simple voice announcements like those found on buses.
So far, the video uploaded by @synthesia_insider has garnered 20,500 likes and nearly 500,000 views in total.
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