We’ve done shows on AI before and our feelings on how it is being used in art and creative endeavors. We’ve tried to not just be reactionary and alarmist about it the way the cultural zeitgeist can tend to be. In fact, we’ve made it clear that there are some really good positive uses for it. And in fact, we’ve made the argument that it’s both not as much “theft” as some people like to argue and that regardless… it isn’t going away. However, something interesting happened last week. A Youtube channel called “Dudesy” released a whole “hour long special” that is purported to be created entirely by A.I. pretending to be George Carlin. Naturally, the internet automatically revolted against it. There were several think pieces written about it as an atrocity. There were people tweeting about it. There were complaints about how it disrespected Carlin’s memory or how it was horrible to do it without the approval of Carlin’s living daughter. There was much speculation that “George Carlin would have hated it!”
But through it all, it was very clear that many people talking about it, hadn’t actually watched it! Well… is it that bad? We watched it so you don’t have to! On today’s episode, Mav is joined by returning guests Steph Siler, A. David Lewis, and Christopher Bell to talk about the Carlin special, and whether it worked or not and what we can learn from it as a cultural artifact and where it fits in the future of A.I. and content creation as well as reminisce about the real Carlin, because he was awesome! What did we think? Listen and then let us know if you agree in the comments!
Citations and Links:
- The Dudesy “George Carlin: I’m Glad I’m Dead” special on Youtube
- Alan Alda’s podcast episode on A.I. featuring an AI episode of M*A*S*H
- The REAL George Carlin on HBOMax
- Thank you to Maximilian’s thoughtForm Music for our theme
- Follow David on Twitter: @adlewis
- Follow Chris on Twitter: @DocChristopherB
- Follow Mav on Twitter: @chrismaverick
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