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Eventually, were being told, artificial intelligence will come for all we know and love.
The only question is when and how.Who?
Were being told how scary and how bad for our jobs these things are, Weber told me.
I want to know what it can do and what it absolutely cannot.
In recent months, the duo tackled that question through two very different uses of easily accessible AI tools.
and perform the generated script in real time.
Its all about the whirlwind adventures of pop superstar Rita Ora in the City of Angels, Los Angeles.
(you’re free to view the whole ChatGPT-generated scripthere.)
First, its a good bit.
Second, its a good bit because the generated text is ineffective as legibly interesting material.
Finally, the text is nevertheless uncanny in how it broadly simulates a rough theoretical understanding of human performance.
Powell and Sweeney werent the only artificially generated voices deployed in the episode.
Of course, I just had to talk to them about all of this.
Lets start with RitaGPT.
Because itisalarming, right?
Its always different but funny in the same way.
And its a surprising way to end the show because AI is just novel enough now.
I dont know we could do this again next year, you know?
:Also, the segment is funnybecauseits bad.
Like, ChatGPT is not good at doing what we do.
It churns out this generic, kooky, almost uncanny-valley radio-show version of our show.
Actually, it sucks.
It still sounds a little human really bad stand-up at best.B.F.
:It speaks in cliches.
It loves doing bits.
It knows our last names.
Sometimes it will know what a Wholigan is without being specifically prompted.
That was our point, and I think most people got it.
:Oh, for sure.
I know of industries now where peoples jobs are already being reduced.
But were being told how scary and how bad for our jobs these things are.
I want to know what it can do and what it absolutely cannot.
B.F.:Im not really scared about it at all.
No part of me is afraid of it replacing chat conversations or banter between two humans.
Like, getting AI to do my ad reads for me.
Thats the stuff that its actually, maybe, sort of almost capable of doing right now.
Break down the fake Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney bit for me.L.W.
:We wrote the entire thing.
I think some people misunderstood the bit, which is fair.
This might also speak to the fact people dont quite understand what its capable of doing.
Also: That took us twice as long to do than normal.
AI is supposed to save you time this did not save us time at all!
Even exporting took forever.
So much extra work for the humans.
I kept laughing because people were like, Oh, youre using AI I cant believe that.
But listen to it!
It does not sound good.
Were so far from the form being perfected in any way.
you’ve got the option to immediately tell these are uncanny-valley computer voices, right?
Its so distracting how bad they are.
And then there were the moments in which AI Sydney Sweeneys voice melted into an Australian accent.B.F.
:Thats totally random.
I dont know how that happened.
So all our audio is extremely clean its just our respective voices.
Sydney Sweeney didnt have that.
:And the more character it has, the more its able to sound funny or sarcastic or whatever.
Although it can barely tell whether the text is sarcastic or funny anyway.
I think the Sydney Sweeney audio we used was an interview from aGQfeature or something.
Thats why we kept saying, These are fake, these are fake, these are fake.
We also wanted to double-check people knew they were fake on top of them sounding absolutely fake.
So the bit isnt just Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney.
- Theres a bit of fake Lady Gaga and Timothee Chalamet in there too.L.W.
Lady Gaga sounds great.
We wanted to find distinct voices.
Its almost as if Glen Powells voice isnt even distinctive enough …
B.F.:Sydneys is.
To do this gag, but we wanted toriff off their movie.
With Gaga and Timmy, these are voices that celebrity impersonators would love to get their hands on.
How many amazing drag queens have done the Gaga voice?
Timmy also has a good voice to imitate.
Then I made them and they just cracked me up.
If you could have any combination of any celebrities in the world, what would that sound like?
Why are you using AI?
And its like,Why would we ever use this again?Its awful.
Its only worth using within the framework of the Who, Me?s.
Anyway, I dont have any aspirations of using AI again in the foreseeable future.
We got it out of our system.
It was funny, but if we keep doing it, then it just loses its value.
:I dont want people to listen to our show and think things are not gonna be real.
We are not very good audio engineers.
The stuff we create has an element of amateur hour, which I think is what we want.
:Shes her own character now.
What has the response to the episode been like?B.F.
:The response was overwhelmingly positive.
The human element is always essential.
We were using it as a tool.
We were the humans who were plugging garbage in to get garbage out.
And our show is good!
Its two of us talking.
I dont need AI Sydney Sweeney in there every week.
:Thats so true.
B.F.:Shes annoying!
