12mo ago

George Carlin AI comedy special is 'ghoulish' and 'creepy,' his daughter says

www.cbc.ca /radio/asithappens/ai-comedy-george-carlin-1.7082516

A new comedy special starts with the quote, "I'm sorry it took me so long to come out with new material, but I do have a pretty good excuse. I was dead."

The voice sounds like comedian George Carlin, but that would be impossible, as Carlin died in 2008. The voice in the special is actually generated by an artificial intelligence (AI).

"This is not my father. It's so ghoulish. It's so creepy," Carlin's daughter, Kelly Carlin-McCall, told As It Happens host Nil Köksal.

The YouTube account Dudesy, which is described as a podcast, artificial intelligence and "first of its kind media experiment," released the hour-long special on Jan. 9. CBC reached out to the producers of Dudesy and its co-host Will Sasso for comment, but did not get a response.

Sasso and co-host Chad Kultgen say they can't reveal the company behind the AI due to a non-disclosure agreement, according to Vice. The channel launched in March 2022.

Carlin-McCall said the channel never reached out to the family or asked for permission to use her father's likeness. She says her father took great pride in the thought and effort he put into writing his material.

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187 comments

Intellectual property created by Carlin’s labor
- Yeah, property created by labor, not labor
  
  the product of labor is still labor, just qualified
  
  Property is not labor. "I put a fence post in this ground 80 years ago so now any crops you grow here are mine" is ~~bullshit~~ dangerous reasoning that ~~only~~ usually serves to enrich the capitalist class at the expense of people doing labor.
  e; now with less tilt
  
  you playing word games by calling the product of his labor "property" doesn't change the fact that it is labor.
  nor do childish insults.
  
  I'm sorry if I come across like a pedantic ass (e; and I'm sorry I got a little tilted with my last comment), but I think this is a really important distinction and each of these things needs separate rules to build the kind of society we want to live in.
  It was labor when it was written and performed, and that labor should be respected and fairly compensated, but once we cross the threshold from writing and performance to recordings of those performances and copies of writings we're talking about intellectual property. I don't think you should be able to make commercial use of other people's intellectual property without their permission, but I think that's a civil lawsuit type of problem not a crime (whereas stealing someone's labor, whether through wage theft or through actual chattel slavery, should be considered a crime, imo). If we don't keep those distinctions clear, corps like Disney and EA are going to use protections we have (or should have) for people's labor to attack anyone they can claim are messing with their brands.
  I've got a lot of respect for Carlin and think this project was a bad idea in bad taste and the wishes of his family members ought to be respected, but I don't want to see an emotional outrage tip us into making dumb laws.
  
  I don’t think
  see, now you're arguing opinion, not fact, and while you're welcome to your opinion regarding what is and is not "labor"-- i disagree. a bunch of mental gymnastics and moral equivocation while further splitting hairs does not a convincing argument make.
  the product of labor is still labor.
  
  now you're arguing opinion, not fact
  Oh, of course, I forgot that the difference between "property" and "labor" were quantifiable objective things and not just agreed upon social consttucts that have evolved over time, how silly of me to lapse into discussing my opinions! /s
  Oh well, let this be my reminder to never give a rhetorical inch when arguing on the internet
  
  i'm glad you learned your lesson about the difference between property and labor, and the mistake of giving ground and still expecting to win.
  
  Poor thing, it's you who should have to learn something
  
  yeah, that some people get their feelings hurt over the silliest things, and then leave petty childish comments like yours.
  
  Right, @gAlienLifeform is playing word games, not the guy who's arguing that impersonating a dead guy is equivalent to "slavery."
  
  when you accuse me of things i never said, that's all the proof necessary that you're arguing in bad faith.
  
  Follow this subthread back up to the top, that's what this is all about. Someone called this "posthumous digital slavery" and I called them out on the ridiculousness of calling it "slavery." All this quibbling about what "labor" means is part of an attempt to justify using that ludicrous term. Maybe you should pay more attention to which side of an argument you're jumping in on before arguing so vigorously for it?
  
  it sounds like you’re the one who should pay more attention and follow that thread back up an hit reply there instead of accusing me of saying something someone else said and argue with them instead.
  lol
  
  I did hit reply there. I wrote the first response to the comment that called this "posthumous digital slavery." That was me up there. I've been here from the beginning.
  
  yes, I see where you first went wrong. no need to repeat that mistake here by blaming me for something someone else said. as you can clearly see: I never mentioned slavery, so, off you go back to that discussion.
  ta-ta!

187 comments