The Dudesy podcast has released an AI-generated comedy special imitating the late George Carlin called I'm Glad I'm Dead - a move slammed by the comedian's daughter, among others.
As reported by Deadline, the Dudesy podcast and YouTube channel — hosted by Will Sasso and Chad Kultgen alongside an AI-generated "host" — released I'm Glad I'm Dead 15 years after Carlin died of heart failure at 71.
Kelly Carlin, daughter of the late comedian, posted on X/Twitter to address the AI-generated special. "My dad spent a lifetime perfecting his craft from his very human life, brain, and imagination," she said. "No machine will ever replace his genius.
"These AI generated products are clever attempts at trying to recreate a mind that will never exist again. Let’s let the artist’s work speak for itself. Humans are so afraid of the void that we can’t let what has fallen into it stay there.
"Here’s an idea: How about we give some actual living human comedians a listen to? But if you want to listen to the genuine George Carlin, he has 14 specials that you can find anywhere."
Dudesy introduces the video by claiming it's like "Andy Kaufman impersonating Elvis or like Will Ferrell impersonating George W. Bush." The AI expanded further in the video description: "For the next hour I'll be doing my best George Carlin impersonation just like a human being would. I tried to capture his iconic style to tackle the topics I think the comedy legend would be talking about today."
Though it's appeared in many forms over the past few years and decades, artificial intelligence really took off in 2023. AI chat services like ChatGPT were first to make headlines, but excitement and possibilities soon turned to concern and doubt. Other projects like a Seinfeld-inspired AI show emerged, promising nothing, forever, while AI art of all kinds was slammed by major figures of several creative industries.
Video games have already endured a particularly complicated relationship with AI too. Embark Studios, the developer of smash hit shooter The Finals, was criticised for using AI voiceovers by a myriad of actors and even other developers, for example. Embark told IGN that "making games without actors isn't an end goal" and claimed it uses a mix of both recorded audio voices and audio generated via AI text to speech tools for its games, however.
Companies have also emerged to create solutions to AI too, like voice actor Cissy Jones' Morpheme, a start-up trying to embrace the new technology in a way that's ethical for the talent its based on. "There's a paradigm shift that's been going on in a very short period of time with AI, which is that originally you had all of these AI companies coming out that were using — they're basically scraping the internet and developing synthetic voices that couldn't be authenticated,” Morpheme advisor Scott Mortman told IGN in November.
Still, video game voice actors voiced a large amount of concern and confusion after SAG-AFTRA announced a deal with AI technology company Replica Studios earlier this week. It no doubt remains a controversial subject, and Carlin's AI-generated special is no exception.
Image Credit: Mark Junge/Getty Images
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.
