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Who will be first in Seattle to put A.I. Ashley on the air?

T

trevorparker588

This is an interesting thing happening in Portland at KBFF. Wonder how this works... Do they fire the person and pay them a one time fee for their voice and send them to work for Amazon? Will it be any good at all? I'm a skeptic but not a psychic so I can't really make a good guess. What do our radio discussions friends think? This gonna take off like a Canadian wildfire?

radioinsight.com

Live 95.5 Launches RadioGPT In Middays With AI Version Of Ashley Z - RadioInsight

Alpha Media CHR “Live 95.5” KBFF Portland OR has become the first station to implement Futuri Media’s RadioGPT with an AI version of syndicated talent ‘Ashley Z’ Elzinga taking over the midday slot. The real Elzinga, who is also PD/morning host of CHR “106 KHQ” WKHQ-FM Charlevoix/Traverse City...
radioinsight.com radioinsight.com
 
If any station were to have A.I. Ashley it would be KQMV MOViN 92.5 cause they already have the normal version of her as a personality.
 
JackindaBox said:
If any station were to have A.I. Ashley it would be KQMV MOViN 92.5 cause they already have the normal version of her as a personality.
Click to expand...
I didn't know that. Is normal Ashley any good? Is she local? I have a hard time seeing Hubbard use a robot. They're a good company from what I know.
 
Pretty clear that the contest winner (panel #3 in Ashley's Instagram embed in the article) had no idea she was talking to a program. This is a demo, but the next AI DJ won't be announced. She or he will just become the new mid day or evening host at KXXX. If the price is right, this will indeed take off like a Canadian wildfire.
 
I listed to it down here yesterday. It is presented as "AI Ashley" and you can tell its not a human if you listen close.

Will a casual listener notice? Probably not unless it is called out.
 
NPR did a story about AI speech a few days ago. One of their reporters who has a fairly distinct speaking style and inflection allowed himself to be recorded, they tested his "AI voice", polished it up and it was to the point where that particular reporter had a teleconference with his own AI voice. The reporter was blown away and at least from where I sat, I could not tell the difference when listening to them both. After that segment was recorded, he'd planned to promptly delete everything and close the account that AI company had created for him.

As with all technologies, AI will be a double-edge sword. It can do amazing things and there are lots of situations where it might be helpful and beneficial - but it can also be used for nefarious purposes as well. For instance, how does law enforcement tell if AI is being used to clone someone's voice to make threats or similar? Also, as we see in this case with radio, it will indeed be used to displace human workers..On the radio, taking orders at the drive-thru, answering basic questions when someone calls their bank or utility provider or pharmacy, etc.
 
Live 95.5 and Alpha Media Portland’s Radio ratings are probably going to start declining now. “Live” will probably decline the most since they are the station that put in “A.I. Ashley”.
 
So let me get this straight: Some PD/morning host from Traverse City, MI, has a gimmick where she uses a synthesized version of her voice, rather than just do a straight voicetrack?
That's the key descriptor here: Gimmick.
Max Headroom from the 80's comes to mind..
 
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It is a gimmick and I don't think it will work. It's creepy and if this continues, will be the factor in a huge loss of jobs in the radio industry. Not to mention loss of jobs in entry-level professions. Imagine a world where there are only cooks silently working in the back at McDonald's and Burger King, and the cashiers/drive-thru workers are all AI. We're already seeing this with self-checkout being expanded instead of hiring more cashiers in grocery stores.

When I listen to small-town stations, they often use the Weatherology service for weather forecasts, and it sounds similar. Like how Jim Cantore made voiceovers of every temperature, weather condition, and percentage chance for rain/snow for the TWC local on the '8s. They are meteorologists that are really pre-recorded takes bunched up to make a weather forecast. It's because the meteorologists do not have time to record 1,000 different weather forecasts for Bismarck, San Angelo, Roanoke, Clovis NM, etc. in two hours' time.
 
Pretty sure most on this board have little understanding of AI, who the real leaders are in the industry and NOT Microsoft or Amazon, the various versions / types of AI, or AGI, how to use the prompts and code successfuly to get the correct results - who makes the chips, what is Tensor Flow, PyTorch, or Keras, the ongoing battle for chips and what it really means moving forward for this industry but the world as a whole. You won't lose your job to AI, just to someone who knows how to use it better than you. The ONLY saving grace for radio is to return to HYPER local talent that connects with the audience. PERSONALITY radio.
 
My first "real" job after college (not involving radio) was in tech, and part of what we were working on involved the early stages of the current era of artificial intelligence. Now, even though this was 2019, the AI systems we were working with had a long way to go before they could be trusted with anything important. When they are used effectively, AI should provide workers with helpful tools to make their jobs easier and more efficient. When they are used incorrectly (or have problems), it can create a big web of issues. Long story short, the AI went a bit haywire and created some big problems for my department. Nevertheless, my company worked out the kinks, and it eventually began to work the way in which it was intended.

The main problem I see is that many radio companies are notoriously broke, cutthroat, or generally cheap. If they see an avenue to cut a real person out of the equation and replace a role with AI, they're probably going to try it. Personally, I see there being no replacement for live content brought forth by real people. A host that only does the basics may be substituted with AI, but AI is not a replacement for morning shows.
 
crainbebo said:
It is a gimmick and I don't think it will work. It's creepy and if this continues, will be the factor in a huge loss of jobs in the radio industry. Not to mention loss of jobs in entry-level professions. Imagine a world where there are only cooks silently working in the back at McDonald's and Burger King, and the cashiers/drive-thru workers are all AI. We're already seeing this with self-checkout being expanded instead of hiring more cashiers in grocery stores.

When I listen to small-town stations, they often use the Weatherology service for weather forecasts, and it sounds similar. Like how Jim Cantore made voiceovers of every temperature, weather condition, and percentage chance for rain/snow for the TWC local on the '8s. They are meteorologists that are really pre-recorded takes bunched up to make a weather forecast. It's because the meteorologists do not have time to record 1,000 different weather forecasts for Bismarck, San Angelo, Roanoke, Clovis NM, etc. in two hours' time.
Click to expand...

Its individual words and phrases recorded each as one piece.. Weatherology goes out to grab the text of the forecast and then the automatic system assembles the forecast. We use them on KLMI
 
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