In a recent conversation with Marie Forleo, Seth Godin (love you both) said it won’t be long before there will be A.I. generated podcasts personalized to the individual:
A.I. will be so efficient at the task, says Seth, that podcasters will be made irrelevant.
I think he’s right.
But I don’t think it will be any good.
Here’s why:
Misinformation
People made a big fudging stink about disinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic, many not realizing that the mainstream media was one of the biggest proponents of propagating and perpetuating blatant lies.
(If you haven’t heard of controlled opposition, look it up.)
Were we dealing with a lot of bad information? Sure. Were we panicking and scared of a potentially fatal virus? Absolutely. Did we have all the facts? Not even close.
And I mean no disrespect to people who were impacted by the pandemic (realistically, though, everyone was impacted in some way, shape, or form).
But remember – we were also dealing with a man who self-appointed himself the god of “Science” and claimed he was right regardless of what you believed (and he was verifiably and quantifiably wrong many times over).
Do you really want to trust Artificial Intelligence to deliver accurate, timely, relevant information to you? Even if it knows your preferences, likes, and dislikes, guaranteed it will deliver what it wants you to hear, not what you want to hear.
Media is already the most powerful form of indoctrination there is. Custom, personalized content stemming from the same branch? That’s brainwashing.
Lack of Creativity
We’re still NOT dealing with sentience. And I wonder why people are constantly glossing over this fact. We’re quite loose with our interpretation of “Artificial Intelligence” currently.
So-called “A.I.” is an article compiler, voice generator, image masher, etc. It’s not self-aware, and it’s not creative. It can’t think for itself. It can’t bring you fresh, innovative, life-transforming insights. All it can do is draw upon the information that’s already out there, which might give the impression or illusion of being valuable or transformative.
That might be fine for the daily news, which we know is the best propaganda and fearmongering machine available, but I don’t even like the idea of A.I. pretending to know things and interacting with it as though this were true. All it’s doing is taking from other people’s blogs and papers, summarizing them, and passing them off as its own.
I find other people’s content useful because it brings fresh perspectives to the table. There are many things I would have had trouble learning, such as the pentatonic scale, if I didn’t have a tribe of mentors.
Boredom
I have no reason whatsoever to read or listen to A.I.-generated content. I’d rather throw a pickle at the neighbor’s fence (at least that way I might laugh, and laughing is good for you).
I don’t care how well-written the article is; I don’t care how enthusiastic the voice is. If it wasn’t created by a living, breathing, human being with real emotions and a soul, it’s all a counterfeit experience. And I did not sign up for a counterfeit life.
With so much A.I.-generated content, the internet will become a very boring, stale, pointless place. No one will make things, because they will be crowded out by A.I., which can generate moderate (and that’s being generous) quality content at a faster rate than a human being.
It’s too bad – I rather enjoyed this thing we had going with the internet. Now I have a better idea what the search engine guys were so excited about at the ground floor…
Final Thoughts
Unfortunately, I know most people won’t exercise this degree of critical thinking in choosing what they listen to.
So, if Seth is right, human-hosted podcasts will be made redundant regardless of my opinion. It doesn’t change the fact that it will be crap.
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