George Carlin Estate Files Lawsuit Against Group Behind AI-Generated Stand-Up Special: ‘A Casual Theft of a Great American Artist’s Work’::George Carlin’s estate has filed a lawsuit against the creators behind an AI-generated comedy special featuring a recreation of the comedian’s voice.
I agree it’s fucked up, but damn if it isn’t well done and pretty spot on. It’s crazy to hear about recent events from the voice and perspective of George Carlin. The special had me ready to pick up my pitchfork.
I watched the whole thing and it was obviously written by someone and dropped through a text to speech engine (or “AI”).
I do not believe for a second that this was written by AI. AI is getting a lot better at writing, but it still sucks when it comes to humour. It’s great at going from A to B with a typical flow of thought, but it tends to struggle with the reverse, B to A, like a punchline and its setup. Since the court case seems to revolve around not the impersonation aspect but instead the supposed training of the AI on Carlin’s works, it’ll be interesting to find the truth in the matter.
Before I watched it, I thought that it was perhaps sections written by AI and then stitched together afterwards.
After watching it, I think very little of it was actually written by AI, anything that “AI” contributed was thoroughly edited, and that most of it was completely written by a mediocre comedy writer.
There is a 0% chance that anyone typed anything like “Have AI George Carlin perform an hour-long special posthumously” into a computer and it spat that audio out.
There is exactly one bit that I think was even conceivably inspired by interactions with a chat bot and it’s the one about replacing the vowels in people’s names (which is coincidentally what a couple of YouTubers take as “proof” that it was AI generated in whole), and even that bit was likely AI-inspired but not at all AI-written.
EDIT: I wanted to add somewhere that I’m happy to find another skeptic. This seems like a modern “mechanical Turk” to me.
A thing that wouldn’t surprise me at all is if this is some sort of elaborate stunt similar to something Andy Kaufman would do.
It’s a ruse to drive publicity and generate revenue for a podcast. The album itself is free, but this was all about making money.