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The AI reporter that took my old job just got fired

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Re: The AI reporter that took my old job just got fired

#61

Post by allenu »

Bjorkbat wrote: post #33
vunderba wrote: post #5

Slightly tangential, but this is the reason I'm baffled why people think that AI-driven podcasts would ever be worth listening to. If you can find an LLM+TTS generated podcast with even a FRACTION of the infectious energy as something like Good Job Brain, Radio Lab, or Ask Me Another, then I'll eat my hat. I don't even own one. I'll drive to the nearest hat store, purchase the tallest stovetop hat that I can afford a…

As someone who's struggled to really get into podcasts, I'm convinced that most people who enjoy podcasts don't really actively listen to them, they just like that extra bit of noise in the background while they do something else, with the added bonus that they might just listen at just the right time to pick up some interesting factoid. Don't get me wrong, I like podcasts, Fall of Civilizations being a personal favo…

I agree. I think I listen to podcasts just for a bit of "social noise" when I'm doing something by myself and for occasionally picking up on something new I hadn't heard of before. For pure information content, I think they're actually very poor. It's not unlike listening to an old AM radio talk show. Hosts repeat themselves, engage in banter, and often oversimplify topics for the sake of a narrative.

I also think AI podcasts could become popular one day for people who just want some background noise and bits of trivia every once in a while. I would argue that a lot of YouTube channels I sometimes have in the background just summarize Wikipedia articles and don't have much of a personal touch anyway, so an AI could do the same thing.

Re: The AI reporter that took my old job just got fired

#62

Post by Spoom »

onemoresoop wrote: post #48
tomcam wrote: post #3

Incredibly, no videos linked in an article about a video newscast. I think this is an example. The AI doesn't even pronounce "AI" correctly. Interestingly, it looks slightly offscreen just the way real newsreaders do when they're on prompter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aa7Q2S7VWUk They do a lot right. There's interaction between the bots. They look kind of professional but not Los Angeles/New York quality, which…

What problem are they trying to solve though?

Paying human presenters.

Re: The AI reporter that took my old job just got fired

#63

Post by dsjoerg »

beepbooptheory wrote: post #9
tomcam wrote: post #3

Incredibly, no videos linked in an article about a video newscast. I think this is an example. The AI doesn't even pronounce "AI" correctly. Interestingly, it looks slightly offscreen just the way real newsreaders do when they're on prompter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aa7Q2S7VWUk They do a lot right. There's interaction between the bots. They look kind of professional but not Los Angeles/New York quality, which…

Love this so much, not in the way intended. Its just so strange! I can't put my finger on it, but feels like something Tim and Eric, or Tim Robinson, or even Alan Resnick would have a hand in. There is a kind of aesthetic immanence to whole thing, everything is right on the surface. The voices are only just embodied "enough," their unearned confidence, their "affectations." The deadpan delivery on an absurd stage. Th…

Yes! There is something massive and beautiful available in this direction.

Re: The AI reporter that took my old job just got fired

#65

Post by vunderba »

bilater wrote: post #41
vunderba wrote: post #5

Slightly tangential, but this is the reason I'm baffled why people think that AI-driven podcasts would ever be worth listening to. If you can find an LLM+TTS generated podcast with even a FRACTION of the infectious energy as something like Good Job Brain, Radio Lab, or Ask Me Another, then I'll eat my hat. I don't even own one. I'll drive to the nearest hat store, purchase the tallest stovetop hat that I can afford a…

Again - think of where we were two years ago. I never understand this hubris people have to think AI can never do X while being proved repeatedly wrong.

Everybody trots out this argument.

GPT styled LLMs were introduced back in 2018 so SIX years ago.

Have they gotten more COHERENT? Absolutely. Is coherence the same thing as NOVELTY? NOT EVEN REMOTELY. I've played with markov chains in the 90s that were capable of producing surprising content.

Unless there is a radical advancement in the underlying tech, I don't see any indication that they'll be capable of genuine novelty any time in the near future.

Take satire for example. I have yet to see anything come out of an LLM that felt particularly funny. I suppose if the height of humor for you is Dad jokes, reddit level word punnery, and the backs of snapple lids though that might be different.

Re: The AI reporter that took my old job just got fired

#66

Post by syncsynchalt »

tomcam wrote: post #3

Incredibly, no videos linked in an article about a video newscast. I think this is an example. The AI doesn't even pronounce "AI" correctly. Interestingly, it looks slightly offscreen just the way real newsreaders do when they're on prompter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aa7Q2S7VWUk They do a lot right. There's interaction between the bots. They look kind of professional but not Los Angeles/New York quality, which…

I was surprised at how game the AI was to pronounce the Hawaiian place names, it was confident enough that I assumed the pronunciation was correct. The article notes that it is butchering the placenames though.

To me this illustrates a common cognitive mismatch when evaluating AI, it can be confident in a way that most humans can't, and that misleading social cue is another reason we trust its output.

Re: The AI reporter that took my old job just got fired

#67

Post by 1024core »

tomcam wrote: post #3

Incredibly, no videos linked in an article about a video newscast. I think this is an example. The AI doesn't even pronounce "AI" correctly. Interestingly, it looks slightly offscreen just the way real newsreaders do when they're on prompter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aa7Q2S7VWUk They do a lot right. There's interaction between the bots. They look kind of professional but not Los Angeles/New York quality, which…

James' lips don't seem to move at all.

The problem with such "videocasts" (as opposed to "podcasts") is that there is another channel that the AI has to control: the video. Generating convincing video is much harder than generating convincing audio.

Re: The AI reporter that took my old job just got fired

#68

Post by petercooper »

vunderba wrote: post #5

Slightly tangential, but this is the reason I'm baffled why people think that AI-driven podcasts would ever be worth listening to. If you can find an LLM+TTS generated podcast with even a FRACTION of the infectious energy as something like Good Job Brain, Radio Lab, or Ask Me Another, then I'll eat my hat. I don't even own one. I'll drive to the nearest hat store, purchase the tallest stovetop hat that I can afford a…

Someone in 2020: "If you can find a computer program that can generate an image with even a FRACTION of the aesthetic appeal of human created art...."

Give it time. Progress is fast.

Re: The AI reporter that took my old job just got fired

#69

Post by skybrian »

sourcepluck wrote: post #40
vunderba wrote: post #5

Slightly tangential, but this is the reason I'm baffled why people think that AI-driven podcasts would ever be worth listening to. If you can find an LLM+TTS generated podcast with even a FRACTION of the infectious energy as something like Good Job Brain, Radio Lab, or Ask Me Another, then I'll eat my hat. I don't even own one. I'll drive to the nearest hat store, purchase the tallest stovetop hat that I can afford a…

Go back to the 1990s (even probably the 2000s?) and ask literally anyone what they think of the idea of people spending huge quantities of their time on this mortal plane watching videos of other people talking about how they do their make up and pick their outfits. Are those videos "worth watching"? Are videos of people playing video games "worth watching"? Are videos of people opening products and saying out loud t…

Bad TV is a lot older than that. It probably seems weird nowadays to watch “I Dream of Jeanie” and “Gilligan’s Island” reruns because that’s what was on TV. Or how about game shows and soap operas? Daytime TV was the worst. But people watched.

Re: The AI reporter that took my old job just got fired

#70

Post by grumbel »

vunderba wrote: post #5

Slightly tangential, but this is the reason I'm baffled why people think that AI-driven podcasts would ever be worth listening to. If you can find an LLM+TTS generated podcast with even a FRACTION of the infectious energy as something like Good Job Brain, Radio Lab, or Ask Me Another, then I'll eat my hat. I don't even own one. I'll drive to the nearest hat store, purchase the tallest stovetop hat that I can afford a…

The value in AI podcasts at the moment isn't in replacing human content, but in filling the niches that human content just doesn't cover. Doesn't matter if it's not the best podcast ever, when it's literally the only podcast on this planet discussing the topic you want to listen too.
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