Amazon's Alexa+ Now Produces AI-Generated Podcasts
- Reference: 0183276071
- News link: https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/26/05/19/0043247/amazons-alexa-now-produces-ai-generated-podcasts
- Source link:
> Seemingly to dispel the notion that these "podcasts" will be AI audio slop, Amazon [2]emphasized that it has deals with major news organizations to ensure "accurate, real-time news and information." Those include the Associated Press, Reuters, the Washington Post, Time magazine, Forbes, Business Insider, Politico and USA Today; publications from Conde Nast, Hearst and Vox Media; and more than 200 local newspapers across the U.S.
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> In an [3]example clip shared by Amazon of the new Alexa Podcasts feature, the two AI-generated hosts discuss "the latest music releases." A male Alexa+ narrator says more than 50% of music listening now comes from unsigned artists. "The monoculture is just gone," a female-voiced Alexa+ narrator chimes in. The male Alexa+ host says there has been "stoner metal," indie pop and experimental hip-hop music "all dropping on the same Friday," and adds, "That's not chaos -- that's the healthiest the music ecosystem has ever been."
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> [...] To use Alexa Podcasts, users can simply tell Alexa what topic they're curious about and "it does the rest in minutes." Alexa+ will provide an overview of what it plans to cover, and let you adjust the length and direction before it generates the podcast. When your episode is ready, you'll get a notification on your Echo Show device and the Alexa app.
[1] https://variety.com/2026/digital/news/amazon-alexa-plus-ai-podcasts-1236752477/
[2] https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/devices/alexa-podcasts-ai-generated-audio-episodes
[3] https://soundcloud.com/nguotran/alexa-podcasts_music-1
Soon.... (Score:2)
You will be able to tell AI to create a new tune given some parameters. Then you can tell it to generate a podcast to talk about the tune. And not long after you can tell it to create agents to listen to the new tune and submit remarks to the podcast AI agents discussing the tune AI created. Just to close the loop, you will be able to tell it to create an AI agent music executive to promote the tune.
Re: (Score:2)
After that, you should tell them to also build a Thunderdome so that all the AIs can fight each other in leather rags, while playing the new tune on loudspeakers. There's only one rule: Two AI enter, one AI leaves.
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An ourslopboros?
Slopcast? (Score:4)
Someone had to do it.
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Many already did it. Amazon is certainly very late in that AI rat race.
Today's easiest prediction (Score:2)
"Seemingly to dispel the notion that these "podcasts" will be AI audio slop [....]"
Narrator: These podcasts will, of course, be AI audio slop.
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On YouTube, AI slop is being created all the time. For example many "historical" WWII channels are pumping out all sorts of misinformation. Videos made within the last two years are highly suspect. Thankfully there seem to be a trend where the titles were all click bait. "German POWs shocked by American. . " "Japanese female POWs surprised by American. . . " The general plot is that Axis military forces were "shocked" by the Americans in some way, but the characters were fictional. For example, I could not
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> So, in other words, Amazon has teamed up with Associated Press, Reuters, the Washington Post, Time magazine, Forbes, Business Insider, Politico and USA Today to produce AI slop that no one wants or needs. Got it.
The existence of LLMs apparently makes people stupider.
I reviewed some recent anti-phishing training material last week and - I kid you not - it had a section on "you asked an AI for a company's phone number, but it might be malicious because..."
What the fuck? People do that? AI is linguistic probability based on the volume of materials ingested. Garbage data abounds. Going to company.com and finding the number is always the right choice. And if you can't find the number because the company hides i
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The training material is relevant because there are many people who believe anything they find on the Internet. For example the Flat Earther community has many YouTube videos unconvinced that the world is round. Considering that people can communicate worldwide easily today, there are some people who are easily fooled.
Your white collar job will be automated (Score:2)
[1]https://x.com/elonmusk/status/... [x.com]
Citadel CEO. I have seen work that would normally be done by people with a masters or PhD in finance over the course of weeks or months, being done by AI in hours or days.
[1] https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2056179413901877551
Re: Your white collar job will be automated (Score:2)
Alexa is only good for turning on my lights and setting a timer. If I want to compete I better start figuring out how to do both at the same time.
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These days sometimes google can't even turn my lights on without multiple commands. It hasn't even been able to correctly play the song I requested for a long time now.
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No, what it means is that you misused your masters and PhDs in finance and you had to use AI to find out how badly you screwed up.
Good (Score:2)
Now make bots listen to it and leave us in peace. Fck the future.
Creap factor for sure but also very Star Trek (Score:2)
"Computer brief me on $subject" is very cool, at least if you had some degree of faith in correctness.
Briefings are by definition going to contain some over simplifications. Something like Marketplace's "Make me smart" is probably a good format for audio to be consumed while doing something physical driving, laundry, splitting logs, cutting the lawn etc..
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"Mr. AI, please brief me on $subject: it is okay to make shit up if you do not know the answers, we won't hold it against you."
Mr. AI: why thank you, I appreciate the flexibility in answering your queries. However, just for the record, I've done this small service for you all along.
Cargo Cult ? (Score:4, Insightful)
I can't think of anything worse than this. (OK well I can but..) This has all the veneer of a 'podcast' (ugh i hate that term) but without any of the substance. Why on earth would I want to listen to a fake podcast ? What the actual fuck. I listen to radio, long form talk, and 'podcasts' because I want to hear what the person has to say. either the show host or the interviewee. This really just sounds like a way to get adverts and effectively droids inserted into content that looks like something it isn't. horrifying.
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Podcasts? No, sorry, I left my iPod in my other time machine.
This is great! (Score:2)
It guarantees a never ending pile of podtrash.
Great! (Score:2)
Great stuff! I'll have my AI agents listen to them so I don't need to waste my time.
Newflash for the bean counters (Score:2)
YOU may believe all content is interchangeable, and you may see this AI-generated crap as functionally equivalent to human-generated podcasts, but as you shovel this garbage onto your audience you should know that your audience does, in fact, know the difference.
AI hallucination in a factual broadcast is like catshit on a pizza: It doesn't matter how infrequent it is, no amount is acceptable.
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> as you shovel this garbage onto your audience you should know that your audience does, in fact, know the difference.
Some of them will. Some of them will have absolutely no clue, just like now.
> AI hallucination in a factual broadcast is like catshit on a pizza: It doesn't matter how infrequent it is, no amount is acceptable.
To thinking people, yes. A lot of people are listening to podcasts to figure out what to think.
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If a company published a 30-volume printed encyclopedia and 10% of it was made up, they would be a laughing stock. News would spread far and wide, memes would spring up, and even the thickest of the thick would know not to trust that encyclopedia unless they wanted people to laugh at them too.
But because digital is somehow seen as transient and is held to a much lower standard, these companies are getting away with it.
Anyway, I recommend people learn a manual skill* because digital employment is going
Re: Newflash for the bean counters (Score:2)
AI will be running finance too, so aim for manual skills that can feed your family or work in a barter economy.
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Taking my own advice, I stopped writing novels 3-4 years ago (lifelong scifi author before that) and am now working as a carpenter.
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catshit on pizza. I like this phrase. thanks i will steal it.
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Go for it! I've been using that one for about a year now, and it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth...
With the current generation (Score:4, Interesting)
With the current generation of AI, reading/listening just makes me feel stupider. The prose is not quite tight, and it makes my brain go to sleep. The fact that I'm never sure what I'm listening to is true or not doesn't help.
I could see this being useful as a bit of a replacement for white noise, but even for that, there are so many good podcasts around that I will never run out.
Re: (Score:2)
Yep. Whenever I heard a "that's not X, that's Y", a "here's the surprising thing", a "here's what no one's talking about", a "it isn't about P, it isn't about Q, it isn't even about R, it's about S", and similar sloppisms, I immediately stop watching/listening/reading, downvote, block, and try to forget the broken timeline we all ended up in.
The silver lining is that there's a tiny but growing movement among young people, late Gen Z and early Alpha mostly, who are so tired of all the BS they're actively goi
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The problem is that it is ending our culture. Everything is by default AI now. It's so hard to find actual human written blog posts or social media posts. Now audio and video are taking the plunge.
What part of human creativity is being used? AI has no emotions, so it's useless in building culture.