this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2024

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251

George Carlin AI comedy special is 'ghoulish' and 'creepy,' his daughter says (www.cbc.ca)

submitted 9 months ago by girlfreddy@lemmy.ca to c/news@lemmy.world

81 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

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[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 65 points 9 months ago (11 children)

I don't care about the technology. I don't even care if it's funny. It's in terrible taste.

If you have a funny standup set, do your routine yourself. If you want funny topical comedy, there are literally dozens of comedians alive today you can watch right now on multiple streaming services and YouTube.

There is no reason to do this other than to be tasteless.

I don't believe in blasphemy, but if I did, putting words in the mouth of an incredibly insightful genius and presenting it as his words would be blasphemy.

[–] elbarto777@lemmy.world 25 points 9 months ago (1 children)

If Carlin himself approved it before dying, I might listen to it. But nope. You said it yourself. Plenty of living talent right now.

[–] TheMightyKracken@lemmy.today 2 points 9 months ago

They should have done this with the last Norm MacDonald special that he recorded during the pandemic. Use the same words, but put him in front of an audience.

[–] Pretzilla@lemmy.world 9 points 9 months ago

Jay Leno bitched that he was annoyed when someone would put on a comedy album for friends, and 'try to take the credit' for being funny.

This kind of feels like a logical extension of that.

[–] ediculous@feddit.nl 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Well they aren't trying to pass this off as Carlin's material. The video starts and ends with a disclaimer saying that it's an AI generated impersonation.

What if this set was entirely written and performed by a human but in the style of George Carlin? Is that as tasteless?

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

A little, but not as much as if they were pretending to be George Carlin. I don't think a disclaimer somehow doesn't make it tasteless. Imagine it wasn't Carlin or even a comedian. Imagine if it was, since his day is coming up, Martin Luther King, Jr.? An AI MLK that delivers a speech that is an original speech but similar to one of his, but with a disclaimer that it wasn't a real MLK. Tasteless? I sure as hell think so.

[–] ediculous@feddit.nl 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

That makes sense. I think what confuses me about this reaction more than anything is the fact that we've had all these different AI recreations of other dead artists that are being met with either a neutral or even positive reception.

I've seen a bunch of Kurt Cobain and Chester Bennington songs created by AI where the comments are all talking about how much they love/miss the artist, then this drops and everybody loses their shit.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

I would call those equally tasteless. Digital necromancy, as a whole, is a pretty tasteless endeavor with only one exception I can think of- https://fortune.com/2023/10/12/cyberpunk2077-voice-actor-video-game-ai/

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[–] Gork@lemm.ee 21 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Carlin-McCall said the channel never reached out to the family or asked for permission to use her father's likeness.

I smell a lawsuit incoming.

[–] Rusticus@lemmy.world 9 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I hope so. It’s so evil to do this without permission.

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[–] zanyllama52@infosec.pub 18 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Interesting concept. I watched the first 10 minutes or so. The video goes to great lengths to clearly describe that this is neither Carlin's voice or jokes. The material is roughly George Carlin-ish, but not great. The AI voice is not quite believable either.

It's not really for me, and also not a crime in my view. Just a weird thing someone did.

[–] CeruleanRuin@lemmings.world 13 points 9 months ago

Honestly it came off on the level of a pretty decent impressionist. Not quite on Carlin's level, but evocative enough of his patter and sensibility to make me wish it was the real thing, and there were moments in it where I could almost pretend that it was.

Man, I miss Carlin.

[–] HiddenLayer5@lemmy.ml 13 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Standup comedy is meant to be relatable, the best standup material makes fun of the writer's real experiences and/or common experiences of the audience. This is just my hot take, but I think an AI writing standup comedy is and always will be completely soulless because the AI has never experienced anything and is just putting words together that it doesn't even know the significance of, and is doing so purely based on the statistics of how real human standup uses those words. Even with AI acting out standup written by humans, they still don't understand what they're saying and the emotions they supposedly show are still based on statistics. If you find AI standup funny, you have that right, but I personally don't and that's just me.

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Think of how stupid the average AI is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.

[–] fsr1967@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago

🪙🪙🪙

[–] Pons_Aelius@kbin.social 9 points 9 months ago (14 children)

Carlin-McCall said the channel never reached out to the family or asked for permission to use her father’s likeness.

Welcome to the world of posthumous digital slavery!

When a person dies, anyone can do what ever they want with their image and life's work.

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[–] PugJesus@kbin.social 6 points 9 months ago (22 children)

We really need stronger restrictions on AI usage.

[–] DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Only for corporate use. Leave the people doing fun non profit parody things alone. Its the people doing this...or stealing someones likenesses to sell a product that need to be regulated

[–] ThankYouVeryMuch@kbin.social 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

We need but not for this, I would prefer restricting governments and corporations from using it to spy on people.

[–] girlfreddy@lemmy.ca 4 points 9 months ago

Why can't we have both?

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[–] doctorcrimson@lemmy.today 6 points 9 months ago

I just realized Stephen Colbert doesn't own the rights to himself, so there could be that trainwreck soon as well.

[–] pineapplelover@lemm.ee 4 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I watched it and it was pretty good. Yeah, it's not the same as the real George Carlin but a few of them certainly got be chuckling and resembled reusing his past work in today's context. The video did start off prefacing that this was an AI and not truly George Carlin so nobody would be fooled that it's not actually him.

[–] jungle@lemmy.world 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It doesn't sound at all like him and the laugh track is just the insult cherry on top.

[–] Nusm@lemmy.zip 6 points 9 months ago

I was thinking it kinda did, but kinda didn’t, and I couldn’t put my finger on why. Someone in another post nailed it for me. Whoever made this used all of George’s stand up specials to train the AI on his voice and cadence, so George of course sounded young in his early work and old in the later ones. The AI mixed that together, so you get a voice that’s not quite his younger voice and not quite his older voice either. That made perfect sense to me why it sounds like George, but still a little off.

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[–] Showroom7561@lemmy.ca 2 points 9 months ago (2 children)

This was honestly funnier than most comedy specials I've watched on Netflix.

Did AI write the content or only impersonate the voice?

Either way, it worked at making me laugh. It didn't even need to be "George Carlin", and it would have been just as funny as just some old guy complaining.

[–] MaxVoltage@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

its honestly good

1% george carlin Ai is better than most Ai

he absolutely hand wrote the jokes but had to use technology for the voice it seems. ithink

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