Podcast Industry Under Siege as AI Bot Flood Airways with Thousands of Programs (yahoo.com)
- Reference: 0180385117
- News link: https://slashdot.org/story/25/12/14/2110234/podcast-industry-under-siege-as-ai-bot-flood-airways-with-thousands-of-programs
- Source link: https://tech.yahoo.com/ai/articles/podcast-industry-divided-ai-bots-110000820.html
> Popular podcast host Steven Bartlett has used an AI clone to launch a new kind of content aimed at the 13 million followers of his podcast "Diary of a CEO." On YouTube, his clone narrates " [2]100 CEOs With Steven Bartlett ," which adds AI-generated animation to Bartlett's cloned voice to tell the life stories of entrepreneurs such as Steve Jobs and Richard Branson. Erica Mandy, the Redondo Beach-based host of the daily news podcast called "The Newsworthy," [3]let an AI voice fill in for her earlier this year after she lost her voice from laryngitis and her backup host bailed out...
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> In podcasting, many listeners feel strong bonds to hosts they listen to regularly. The slow encroachment of AI voices for one-off episodes, canned ad reads, sentence replacement in postproduction or translation into multiple languages has sparked anger as well as curiosity from both creators and consumers of the content. Augmenting or replacing host reads with AI is perceived by many as a breach of trust and as trivializing the human connection listeners have with hosts, said Megan Lazovick, vice president of Edison Research, a podcast research company... Still, platforms such as YouTube and Spotify have introduced features for creators to clone their voice and translate their content into multiple languages to increase reach and revenue. A new generation of voice cloning companies, many with operations in California, offers better emotion, tone, pacing and overall voice quality...
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> Some are using the tech to carpet-bomb the market with content. Los Angeles podcasting studio Inception Point AI has produced its 200,000 podcast episodes, in some weeks accounting for 1% of all podcasts published that week on the internet, according to CEO Jeanine Wright. The podcasts are so cheap to make that they can focus on tiny topics, like local weather, small sports teams, gardening and other niche subjects. Instead of a studio searching for a specific "hit" podcast idea, it takes just $1 to produce an episode so that they can be profitable with just 25 people listening... One of its popular synthetic hosts is [4]Vivian Steele , an AI celebrity gossip columnist with a sassy voice and a sharp tongue... Inception Point has built a roster of more than 100 AI personalities whose characteristics, voices and likenesses are crafted for podcast audiences. Its AI hosts include Clare Delish, a cooking guidance expert, and garden enthusiast [5]Nigel Thistledown ...
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> Across Apple and Spotify, Inception Point podcasts have now garnered 400,000 subscribers.
[1] https://tech.yahoo.com/ai/articles/podcast-industry-divided-ai-bots-110000820.html
[2] https://www.youtube.com/@100CEOs
[3] https://open.spotify.com/episode/0e2oeJJMOJELeHHX7QH6qK?si=290cb39b5b7b48b3
[4] https://www.instagram.com/vvsteeleip/
[5] https://open.spotify.com/show/7aKSCghOxn0zZSgRnz4chZ
Gross (Score:1)
But to each their own. Some people like: “pro” wrestling, country music, and/ or “reality” television. So what’s some more slop to the trough?
Re: Gross (Score:2)
The difference when you turn on pro-wrestling, you know what youre getting.
Re: (Score:2)
> But to each their own. Some people like: “pro” wrestling, country music, and/ or “reality” television. So what’s some more slop to the trough?
I see what you did there. Well done my friend. Well done.
Easy (Score:2)
Make them listen to each other.
To be fair, many podcasts were already slop (Score:3)
Just not AI slop. Bad-quality things can often be replaced by cheaper to make other bad quality things. And nothing of value is lost.
I dont know how its legal (Score:4, Interesting)
Yesterday i ran into what i thought was a podcast with astrophysicist Brian Cox discussing travel and living barriers associated with Mars exploration. After a few minutes, something sounded off so dove into the description and comments to find out no this AI bs made to sound like Dr Cox and although some of it im sure was factual, it leaves one wondering how much is true and why go to the trouble of misrepresenting someone like that.
Profitable? (Score:2)
> it takes just $1 to produce an episode so that they can be profitable with just 25 people listening.
How do you make a penny with 25 listeners? I don't know any platform paying $1.01 for 25 listens/streams/downloads. Could someone please enlighten me?
"AI Bot Flood" (Score:1)
I am guessing an AI didn't write this headline - they aren't as shit at grammar as a real editor.
Can we have AI editors now ?
Who are these people? (Score:2)
I'm surprised people are actually listening to this dribble instead of just looking up the wikipedia article. If automated content can actually engage humans, we have no chance.
Re: (Score:3)
The listeners are just other AI bots
Re: (Score:3)
I've yet to experience a podcast that wouldn't have been better as a written article. It's such a slog to get through someone droning on for 20 minutes, when I could've just skimmed the same article in a few seconds and gotten the gist of it.
I can only assume some people actually enjoy listening to yammering, and just getting to the fucking point already, is secondary.
Re: (Score:1)
> I've yet to experience a podcast that wouldn't have been better as a written article. It's such a slog to get through someone droning on for 20 minutes, when I could've just skimmed the same article in a few seconds and gotten the gist of it.
> I can only assume some people actually enjoy listening to yammering, and just getting to the fucking point already, is secondary.
It's not any different than sitting at a bar with a beer, talking to your friends about philosophy. It that too much of a slog for you too?
Re: (Score:2)
> I've yet to experience a podcast that wouldn't have been better as a written article. It's such a slog to get through someone droning on for 20 minutes, when I could've just skimmed the same article in a few seconds and gotten the gist of it.
> I can only assume some people actually enjoy listening to yammering, and just getting to the fucking point already, is secondary.
Absolutely.
In English, the average speaking speed is about 145 words per minute.
In English, the average reading speed is about 250 words per minute.
I grant that audio has its place; audio books and podcasts are good for people who are driving, jogging, biking, or otherwise in motion. But... almost every podcast should come with a transcript. If we need or want context, then we can dip into the audio/video. Otherwise, these people are needlessly eating about 30% of our lives.
Re: (Score:2)
Good thing about podcasts is you can listen to them on the go where the point isn't to get the gist of information, it's to be entertained without visuals.
Re: Who are these people? (Score:3)
People doing chores.
People driving their car.
People exercising.
People with visual impairments.
Etc. Etc.
Re: (Score:2)
FYI, the word is "drivel".