Fake accounts on Twitter impersonating deceased celebrities are nothing new, but what about artificial intelligence technology that can closely resemble the dead? This happened when a new podcast from Play.ht used such software to generate a construct of the late Apple founder Steve Jobs being played to interact with a podcast by Joe Rogan.
The developer (Podcast.AI) says the podcast is “an example of how artificial intelligence can learn about humans,” according to a report by AppleInsider. According to the company’s official website, “The Steve Jobs episode was trained using his biography and any notes of him we could find online so the AI could accurately bring him back to life.
“At Play.ht, we believe in a future where all content creation is AI generated but human-led, and the most creative work depends on humans’ ability to communicate their desired creation to the machine.”
The 20-minute interview, described by technology website Gizmodo as “both surreal and occasionally funny,” begins with a fake Rogan addressing Jobs as a “reminder of the past” — Rogan started his show in 2009, two years before Jobs’ death. Even if certain parts of the interview seem clumsy in the initial phase, it shows the possibilities of artificial intelligence in further depth.
What is Podcast.ai?
Podcast.ai is a weekly podcast produced solely by artificial intelligence. The transcripts it executes are created via language models. For example, when the AI was being trained on Steve Jobs, it consolidated resources from his biography and all internet records of him to replicate him. Episodes are viewed via Play.ht, an AI-powered text-to-voice generation tool.
What did Steve Jobs’ artificial intelligence say?
The podcast begins with a slightly awkward section of occasional pauses and fake laughter, but builds into an engaging conversation about tech companies, faith, and drugs. What’s fascinating – or maybe disturbing – is that many listeners noticed that the more they paid attention, the more believable the conversation felt.
After the interview begins with a fake Rogan complimenting Jobs’ innovations, the AI tech expert talks about his work at Apple and talks about the company’s future. Curiously, towards the end of the interview, both parties mention that “technology is a double-edged sword” and mention throwing their computers out the window.
How did they develop Steve Jobs’ artificial intelligence?
Play.ht revealed that the text-to-speech model they use is called “adds human emotion and humor into the speech generators.” walker. The company behind Peregrine said it uses machine learning models based on concepts similar to DALL-E. This allows the speech generator to resemble a human voice and show emotions in a so-called “self-monitored way”.
Play.ht has also shown how their technology has cloned other famous voices like Tom Hanks, Kevin Hart and even more deceased ones like John F. Kennedy.
How was the response to the interview?
While some hailed the interview as a sign of progress for the development of AI technology, others argued that using AI in this way was completely immoral. Mike Solana, vice president of the Founders Fund, wrote on Twitter: “[A]I created the voice of a person on a podcast who didn’t give their consent and said things the person never said – a pretty simple nasty thing.
“[I]Is there a reason why we don’t all agree on this stuff yet?”
Understandably, many fear that this technology could be used for propaganda or other disinformation/slander schemes to mislead audiences and undermine reporting of facts. Other reports this year, such as a chess-playing robot breaking a young boy’s finger, have raised similar concerns at the prospect that the technology has “gone too far”.
Microsoft founder Bill Gates has also expressed concerns about the further development of AI and compared the danger to that of nuclear weapons.
