Came across a news story on LinkedIn today: Al Michaels bot to voice Olympics
“Not long ago, it would have seemed like a miracle, but this sort of announcement is becoming commonplace: Peacock will offer personalized daily recaps of the Paris Olympics narrated in the voice of Al Michaels, generated by artificial intelligence. The legendary sports announcer gave his blessing to the endeavor, marveling that the AI version of him was nearly perfect, if “a little bit frightening,” according to Vanity Fair. An in-house team built the feature, training the AI voice on Michaels’ NBC appearances, and editors “will review all content,” NBCUniversal says.”
I am far from a Luddite, and
(uneasily)
make some use of generative AI to inform my own work, but…
This is not something I want, nor does it bode well for anyone currently working, or looking to work, in the broadcast industry
(from a Talent lens, AI has finally given the Boomers their long-sought fountain of youth – no need to grow the next generation, you can keep us around forever!)
That he OK’d it is immaterial to the question, given that AI owners have already shown they don’t particularly care about permission.
The biggest irony is that, elsewhere, IBM is now running an ad about how AI can help software developers write code – and all I can think is that the people writing code for AI will ultimately eliminate the need for coders
(I often wonder whether this is to serve the desires of VC – who would rather not have to deal with “messy” humans)
If we maintain the view that the world of work involves people being paid for doing things for the majority of the week, then AI is a pathological parasite – invading, replacing and finally subsuming its host.
We face a choice, and it is approaching faster than many talking heads admit:
When massive numbers of people are unable to be employed (because AI is delivering the work) and, as a result, approaching poverty – will we treat them, as we do currently, as a shameful statistic to be reviled and/or ignored? Or will we choose to rethink what it is to live in a world where human labor is largely unnecessary?
For me, it has to be the latter
(including real discussions of UBI, distributed ownership, community partnerships, self-sufficiency, local over global, leisure society etc.)
or we end up at a position where AI beavers away at products and services
(to make money for the owners of AI)
only to find that there is NO-ONE with the money to pay for those products and services…
Save for lines of credit…
Which can’t be repaid because…
The investment class heralding the rise of AI are ushering in their own demise.
Did I mention the words pathological and parasitic?