Will Virtual AI-Podcasts be a Threat to Real Presenters? Listen to this.
Would you listen to Quincy interviewing say Pharrell or Jason Durelo? Not Quincy in his archives, but interviews that don’t exist. Interviews constructed after the legend passed away? Quincy Jones knew tons of musicians across generations e.g. Sinatra, Stones, Tupac, Pharrell Williams etc.
To accomplish the aforementioned you’d have to feed a large language model (AI) with realms of Quincy’s interviews and conversations to train it to learn his speaking and conversation style?
By the way you’d need permission from his family/owners of his estate, and in case you’re wondering, no I’m not about to consider it. I’m looking at a broader point. The image posted comes from my interview with the legend, alongside others such as Prince. My reach though as an interviewee I recognise is limited, but Quincy?
If it sounds like a mad idea this week, but BBC Radio 4’s Media Show featured a Virtual Podcast using the voice of a well respected UK chat show host, Sir Michael Parkinson (now passed away in 2023 )interviewing Jason Derulo. Interesting choice. Durelo in addressing Parkinson’s bot anthropomorphises the AI, referring to it as “you”.
It’s worth a listen to and reading the comments from the experience that cover a spectrum from: “RIP Michael Parkinson, this isn’t the way to honour your legacy” and “This is a brilliant achievement which will clearly get better in the future”.
So Quincy Jones interviewing Jason Derulo; what do you think now? The producer behind the Parkinson virtual podcast made clear in the industry journal Broadcast last year that in effect he’s testing the market. The project is receiving wide press coverage.
Clever too, he’s positioning his company’s AI podcast with an idea whose time may well come (See Standford Prof Robert Sutton’s book ‘weird ideas that work’).
It reminds me of the Dotcom I, in which I worked as creative director in innovation, when the idea was to iterate quick and test the market. Remember Brit Alex Tew, a struggling 21 year old student who was selling pixels (terrible idea) on his website, and made a million dollars.
Yesterday when I posted the Radio 4 interview ALICE CHARLES made a good point referring to “the lack of diversity among development teams”. UK media companies’ staffing lacks considerably diversity, so there’s interest from admirers and establishment figures (even if it is a bad idea now) to talk about AI Parkinson. We’re in the attention age. Engagement matters. There’s no such thing as a bad idea if people are talking about it.
There are ethical and moral issues too, and what’s also become apparent is how Media is caught up, like Gen AI architects, with shiny thing syndrome. Anything tech goes and if it involves a media darling, it’s in for a shot.
With the flourishing of LLMs who knows what ideas will emerge next? Interviews with passed away family members. Wait that’s already been done.
Speaking of AI, given the new US administrations roll back on diversity, I wonder how that will play out in the media next week. If you don’t want to look too far, Empowered might be of interest.