China's track record with free speech makes the implications of completely bypassing any human 'journalist' kind of scary. I guess it's always been possible, but damn.
It could even spark new industry as companies arise to create avatars for other public-facing entities where a real person is not required, like corporate PR spokespersons.
Hollywood has already started down this road by creating virtual stand-ins for deceased actors - there's no reason to consider that they won't just create one from the whole cloth within a few years.
It might not happen, but don't be surprised if it does.
Honestly, I don't see a lot of difference between them and the way Sean Hannity blatantly takes the Trump line. The difference is that in the US, there's diversity of press and so diversity of opinions. I'm not confident there was ever diversity of press in China in the first place, so I'm not sure how much this changes. Maybe if the entire press cycle gets completely automated with no human oversight at all, OK. But I imagine there will always be human oversight, just because they don't want things to go off the rails. That's what happens right now.
And if we reach the singularity, I'm sure an AI would have more guts to stand up and say what's on their mind than a human would.
I guess my brain immediately goes to the situation you describe with little/no human oversight. If the only layer of human oversight that does exist values control over truth, this is just one more layer of human intervention removed.
As an exercise in objective labeling - given Glenn Greenwald's reporting on the communications and friendships between Clinton staff and press outlets [1] - would all those those news outlets and non-pundit journalists immediately be considered state-controlled media had she been elected? I do not think so either.
[1] https://theintercept.com/2016/10/09/exclusive-new-email-leak...
I'm glad Americans have other, independent news sources. The problem with state-controlled media is not so much that it exists, but that when it does other options are often suppressed or eliminated in its favor.
At this point, the singularity is speculative fiction.