A new comedy special starts with the quote, “I’m sorry it took me so long to come out with new material, but I do have a pretty good excuse. I was dead.”

The voice sounds like comedian George Carlin, but that would be impossible, as Carlin died in 2008. The voice in the special is actually generated by an artificial intelligence (AI).

“This is not my father. It’s so ghoulish. It’s so creepy,” Carlin’s daughter, Kelly Carlin-McCall, told As It Happens host Nil Köksal.

The YouTube account Dudesy, which is described as a podcast, artificial intelligence and “first of its kind media experiment,” released the hour-long special on Jan. 9. CBC reached out to the producers of Dudesy and its co-host Will Sasso for comment, but did not get a response.

Sasso and co-host Chad Kultgen say they can’t reveal the company behind the AI due to a non-disclosure agreement, according to Vice. The channel launched in March 2022.

Carlin-McCall said the channel never reached out to the family or asked for permission to use her father’s likeness. She says her father took great pride in the thought and effort he put into writing his material.

  • EatATaco@lemm.ee
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    10 months ago

    Unless I’m mistaken, the ai wrote the jokes itself. Basically it was fed Carlin material and attempted to mimic his style, cadence, and voice.

    And I’m not sure how you can claim they are trying to imply he made these jokes, its introduced with the ai being very clear that this is not the case.

    This is basically an Elvis impersonator, except it wrote it’s own Elvis songs. And, of course, it isn’t human.

    I feel like your argument boils down to it not being human. This might be a distinction that we have to and should make, but your argument for that distinction seems pretty arbitrary right now.

    • dustyData@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Yes, welcome to humankind. Most of emotional matters are arbitrary. And yes, the argument is that it was not, attributable, made by a human.

      • EatATaco@lemm.ee
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        10 months ago

        Most of emotional matters are arbitrary.

        The question the previous poster asked was “Why is this or should be a crime?”

        You answered “Because it doesn’t come from a person.”

        I wasn’t responding to a claim about emotional matters, but legal matters.