There have been multiple accounts created with the sole purpose of posting advertisement posts or replies containing unsolicited advertising.

Accounts which solely post advertisements, or persistently post them may be terminated.

AI-Generated George Carlin Drops Comedy Special That Daughter Speaks Out Against: ‘No Machine Will Ever Replace His Genius’

AI-Generated George Carlin Drops Comedy Special That Daughter Speaks Out Against: ‘No Machine Will Ever Replace His Genius’::Stand-up comedian George Carlin has been brought back to life in an artificial intelligence-generated special called ‘I’m Glad I’m Dead.’

gravitas_deficiency ,

This is so tragicomedically the opposite of everything that Carlin was about in so many ways that it’s difficult to fully comprehend

z3rOR0ne ,

Fuck whoever did this. That podcaster… Wtf ever. I couldnt even finish reading the article. I am seething with rage at this so hard I’m shaking. I hope the creator of this abomination gets sued so badly, their great grandchildren curse their name because of the inherited debt.

Fucking asshole.

AlfredEinstein ,

I listened to the first five minutes, and it’s pretty similar to Carlin’s later work.

I’m not clutching my pearls about this any more than Steamboat Willie going into the public domain.

Intellectual property rights are silly, and protecting dead entertainers’ legacies is a waste of time. If a Carlinbot makes a good joke, good for the Carlinbot. What I heard wasn’t very impressive.

burliman ,

Don’t worry, pearls will be clutched anyway. Our society is hungry for outrage.

z3rOR0ne ,

Those are two very different issues. Steamboat Willie belongs in the public domain as it’s copyright has long been expired. Disney has done some shady shit to keep control over their copywritten material for far too long. It’s good they backed down over that bullshit.

US Copyright law says their work only goes into the public domain 70 years after the creator’s death. Carlin passed away in 2008.I’m bad at math, but uhh…it hasn’t been 70 years yet… right? Or did we all go through a time warp again?

This is just yet another example as to why AI companies need to pay foe the data they collect. The artwork and written work displayed on the web still falls under copyright law and thusly the works can only be utilized with express consent from the creators. And yes, until it falls into the public domain.

Now, you could argue that 70 years is too long for copyright to expire. I am open to such an argument. But that simply isnt the case right now for Carlin’s work. Thusly, the creator of this ”work” should indeed be sued (rather brutally imo).

Lastly, even if all this was legal, it’s in incredibly poor taste to do this. It’s one thing for a comic to take inspiration from Carlin, but it would be in poor taste for that same comic to steal his work. This is in even poorer taste from what I see. What a fucking sack of shit this creator is. I hope he dies slowly from sepsis.

AlfredEinstein ,

Nah, you’re wrong. Fuck protecting creators from AI. Let the internet become a circlejerk of bots gobbling each other’s digital cum.

When a good comedian comes along, I’ll go see a live performance. The same goes for musicians, painters, novelists, whoever. Anyone old enough to remember the internet of the '90s will tell you what a derivative shithole it has become already. It’s only getting worse. Artists will adapt and monetize things that AI can’t ruin the market for.

Analog human culture can be fun in ways that no chatbot will ever know.

z3rOR0ne , (edited )

Yeah, based off your post history, I don’t value your opinion all that much. And I’m sure the feeling’s mutual.

But hey, you do you, troll.

AlfredEinstein ,

Don’t get defensive about this.

AI will gobble up all intellectual property and shit out something similar. Over and over over.

Stopping it isn’t an option. And it isn’t society’s job to protect intellectual property owners from new technology in the first place.

Living creators will be able to make a humble living through live appearances and physical media, the same as they have for the last couple of centuries.

This isn’t about your ego, peanut. Your position is the wrong one.

XEAL ,

“No Machine Will Ever Replace His Genius”

OK, but it’s the closest that we can get at the moment.

GentlemanLoser ,

Why do we need to get closer at all? He lived, gave us a ton of laughs that we can still enjoy, and died. Leave it at that.

XEAL ,

Maybe some enjoy this new content, why gatekeeping?

yuriy ,

Because it’s a hot button topic and all the smart people seem to echo this same sentiment.

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

Maybe listen to one of the many, many other human topical comedians out there today instead?

toybastard ,
@toybastard@lemmy.world avatar

“Gatekeeping”??? The man is dead. That’s not gatekeeping. People don’t need more “content”, and certainly aren’t entitled to it over his family’s wishes. There’s gotta be a moral floor somewhere.

nick ,

If someone tried that with bill hicks we’d all end up in the matrix in a year.

homesweethomeMrL ,

AI can’t smoke cigarettes. So. We’re saved.

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

Yet.

unreasonabro ,

Honestly he’s a fairly offensive choice as a first target for this sort of venture, but I haven’t watched the thing yet. Doesn’t seem likely it’ll be full of the cutting political satire we associate with him, and the jokes I’ve seen posted from it are tepid af.

Lunatech ,
@Lunatech@infosec.exchange avatar

@L4s I will not comment on the ethics of this, but I will say that if I had heard this without being told it's AI generated (and the do tell you, at the start and again at the end) and if I didn't know Carlin was dead, I would easily have believed it was him doing this bit. Now I was never a big Carlin fan (I pretty much only heard what could be played on the radio, and most of his stuff didn't fall into that category) so maybe someone more acquainted with his material would have noticed differences, but to me it was a scary good impression of him.

I have to wonder if the daughter doesn't like it because she realizes that she's (I assume) still getting some small amount of payment when people buy his older stuff, but as much of his material was topical I'm guessing those payments are ever diminishing, and she may fear that AI impressions of him will diminish the sales of his older stuff even further. Either that, or possibly it's unsettling to her that a machine could come that close to making a spot-on impression of her father. I guess if someone created an AI of my dad saying things that he never actually said when he was alive, I would also find it somewhat unsettling and maybe even a little creepy.

I'd also be interested to know exactly how much of the creativity behind this (the script) was created by the AI and how much work there was on the part of humans to make it sound natural. I get that AI can make the audio, that's pretty much a given now, but where did the script come from?

Fisk400 ,

Literal ghouls.

DLSantini ,

Why do all of the comments make it seem like people think that someone asked chatgpt to write a George Carlin routine or whatever? A human person, not a computer, wrote some comedy in (what they felt) was in the style of George Carlin. The technology portion of this was the cloning of Carlin’s voice to “perform” the routine. And you can feel however you want about either part of that. I mean, seems like you’d have to be pretty far up your own ass to think you can just put your own words into the mouth of someone else, especially someone who is no longer in a position to call you a fucking idiot, or not. But the story that people are commenting on, sure seems to be quite different to the actual events that occurred.

As far as the actual story, they know what they did. They know full well that they could have actually did a Carlin impersonation if they had wanted. They could have written their material, went up on stage, said exactly want they were doing, performed their bit, dressed up for the part, hitting as many of the mannerisms as they could. A real, actual, proper attempt at an impersonation. They could have done that, and almost no one would have cared. A few people might have been upset about it, as there always are. But largely, no one would have batted an eye.

But they didn’t do that. They did this. They did this, knowing full well that the claim of it being an “impersonation” was bullshit. And knowing full well what the response would be. And it was exactly the response they wanted. All of the attention and outrage they are getting directed at them right now? That was the point.

Lightrider ,

Fuckingcapitalists

werefreeatlast ,

The man was a genius for sure 100% I loved every bit of all the shit he said.

veeesix ,
@veeesix@lemmy.ca avatar

I’m not concerned so much about comedians being impersonated than I am about politicians making guest appearances in political ads suddenly saying/supporting untrue things.

db2 ,

They already do that. Frequently.

LWD , (edited )

deleted_by_author

    •
    qarbone ,

    I find it weird that you think a well-done deepfake porn video of someone vulnerable would be in any way less affecting than if real porn had been released.

    batmaniam ,

    I’ve seen it brought up before, the notion isn’t that it’s ethical or OK, but some people think that the draw post any of that stuff will be gone because anyone could do it and you’d never know if any of it was authentic. Kind of like if you flooded the market with lab grown rhino horns to crash the price and stop poaching, and then also the demand goes away because there’s no allure anymore.

    I don’t know if Id bet on it, but it’s different than saying “I can deep fake porn of anyone without their consent so who wants revenge porn”.

    angrymouse ,

    I think we can go against both here, the root cause seems the same

    Wytch ,
    • fightin’
    • cryin’
    • fuckin’
    • dyin’
    mhague ,

    Carlin’s entire schtick was anti-intellectual platitudinous. He reminds me of Trump with a sense of humor.

    Donkter ,

    Which jokes of his are anti-intellectual?

    mhague ,

    For starters, his famous “think of how dumb the average person is, half of people are dumber than that.”

    Only a small percent of people would be perceptibly below average. Like single digits. It’s circlejerk humor.

    And as far as humor goes, I think he’s great. Just not a genius nor a prophet.

    MrPoopyButthole ,

    I don’t think he was trying to make literal statements with things like that. Yes, he used sociopolitical commentary as his medium, but he was still a comedian.

    He’s not trying to convince his audience that everybody is stupid, he’s speaking to a feeling most of us have had when looking at what others are doing. Everyone sometimes feels like like everybody around them must be stupid, just like we all sometimes feel like we’re the only one missing something.

    He’s beloved because most really talented comedians can derive humor from relatable or absurd situations and stories, but Carlin could make a rhythm linking broad abstract concepts of human experience to really specific examples.

    He’s not a god, he was just a really talented comedian that had a unique style and medium.

    Pretzilla ,

    On your last point I disagree - he was and is my personal savior

    Donkter ,

    But how is that anti-intellectual? Maybe it’s literally saying most people aren’t intellects? But taking the literal interpretation of this joke misses the joke as the other guy pointed out.

    mhague ,

    I’m not reading into it literally, that’s the point. On the surface, Carlin “tells it like it is.” He says things that the people agree with.

    You know what? Just look at the praise for Carlin. You’ll see things like “genius” and “prophet” or “brilliant insight.”

    Then look at people criticizing him like me. Suddenly people defend his character by pointing out he’s just a comedian, it’s just jokes, judge him as a comedian, it’s not serious, etc.

    He’s the Trump of his domain.

    Donkter ,

    You didn’t really answer the question…

    GrundlButter ,

    deleted_by_author

    •
    Pretzilla ,

    It’s not though. But I like your take on it, except you butchered it lol

    Or can you substantiate that claim with broader context? I can’t remember the setup to the premise.

    I guess we could ask Carlinbot.

    mhague ,

    In a scenario where the average IQ is 200? Do you understand what you’re talking about? You realize that the majority of people are exactly average, with a bit fuzziness, right? No? Then I guess Carlin is for you.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • [email protected]
  • random
  • lifeLocal
  • goranko
  • All magazines
    •