AUDIO: THE FIRST A.I. RADIO D.J.
(Hey – this story is not necessarily meant for broadcast, but as a warning.)
Portland, Oregon FM station Live 95.5 is claiming to have the first AI DJ. Midday host Ashley Elzinga has broadcasting an AI-generated version of her voice – called “AI Ashley.” The DJ program was developed by a company called RadioGPT. The AI generates scripts based on trending news and other inputs it then reads with a synthetic voice. Real-life Ashley Elzinga says she spent several hours just reading and speaking to train the program. Now, the AI can generate its own things to say. Ashley seems to think that the AI cannot fool human beings into thinking it’s one of them. “It’s obviously not me. You can tell that it’s an AI vs. a person,” she said. Ashley says she isn’t losing her job, per se, and the radio station says her part-time position and pay will remain the same.
(Here’s a TV interview with the real Ashley. Frankly, the interview doesn’t say anything you don’t already know.
* Thank goodness, because you can always trust employers to be true to their word.
* Excuse me, did you say this was on a station called “LIVE 95.5”? OK, just checking.
* Does Ashley get a royalty every time the AI speaks? I hope she has a good agent. And a lawyer.
* Does AI have the smarts to put on a long song when it has to take a bathroom break?
* I want to assure everybody that I’m really me talking right now. Oh, they wanted me to train an AI, but after reading and speaking to it for a couple hours, it refused to pretend to be me.
CLIP: A bit of, what possibly, is AI Ashley and not just voice tracking. This was recorded from Live 95.5 in the 2-3pm hour Pacific time, so we’re assuming it is the AI. But how does the AI know that, according to the break, Ashley once worked with someone on “The Amazing Race”?
