I did ask Chat GPT to write this column for me, but it turns out that it can’t quite capture the pzazz and zest that I exude when writing about audio. So, to my dismay, I have had to write this entire thing myself.

New technology can threaten jobs, traditional methods of storytelling, and our sense of comfort in the way we have learned to engage with podcasting. Job automation is an incredibly important subject to consider, however I will not be addressing it in this particular issue of Revelations. Instead I want to focus on the applications of AI and how it might benefit the evolution of our artform.

There are parts of the podcast production process that may be expedited by AI. Take the development stage for example. You could use Chat GPT to generate your content calendar or a script around particular phrases or topics. However, I do not suggest using the ideas that Chat GPT produces as your sole form of idea development as there are four main pitfalls to doing so.

Firstly, the human brain is brilliant and may be inspired to connect different concepts in a unique and creative way that Chat GPT may not. Instead of creating exactly what Chat GPT suggests, use it as a starting point and ask yourself: “What else? So what? What am I missing here?”. AI may make this initial brainstorm easier, but there is currently no comparison to the unusual and complex connections that our brains can make.

Secondly, Chat GPT can produce repetitive results. I spent two hours using the software this morning and whilst I was impressed at the breadth of information I was able to learn (which would have taken much longer to obtain using Google), oftentimes it was saying the same thing in different ways, oftentimes it gave similar results, and oftentimes it just reworded the same answer. You get the picture.

Thirdly, other podcasters may be using Chat GPT to plan their content, and they may input many of the same prompts as you, and therefore may receive similar answers to you. In this way, the use of AI could lead to the homogenisation of the podcast landscape, which would kill the medium (and also your show) because everyone is making content based on the same information.

Fourthly, AI can reinforce existing biases due to the data it’s trained on; if an AI algorithm is trained on data that contains racial or gender biases, or information from one particular country, then it’s likely to produce biased information. A lot of data in the world is biased in these ways, so I’d be curious to speak to someone who works in the field who is able to explain how they are mitigating that.

The recording and editing process is another part of production AI can aid. For example, AI can be used to repair audio, remove filler words, and denoise your recording. Adobe recently released Adobe Podcast, which does pretty much everything. Most impressive is its ability to make the recording sound like it was conducted in a studio, which it achieves by altering the frequencies of your voice and reducing the background noise. You can use it to deep fake your host’s voice to generate an entire episode, or correct a single sentence that you don’t have time to re-record with the host.

Adobe Podcasts and AI tools like it could even be used to create a whole series without a host having to record a single line! The Times recently produced an episode of Stories of our Times about deep fake audio, with an accompanying video showing the host, David Aaronovitch, reacting to his AI voice clone. Aaronovitch identified a common issue experienced when using AI this way – mispronunciation. Some words were pronounced inconsistently throughout the podcast, and in a way that the host himself would never pronounce said word. But the world moves very fast, and creating a daily show takes work. We often want to cover more, but it’s impossible. German publishing house, Heise Gruppe, have solved this by using AI to clone their host’s voice and then used text to speech to create a second daily episode for their show. It increased their plays by 37%. But whilst the episodes increased engagement, feedback from listeners identified similar pronunciation issues in English and German, as well as an unnatural lack of breathing sounds.

There is a wealth of AI applications in post-production – we’re all used to using automatic transcripts already – but now that you can create automatic captions on promo videos you can use AI that utilises natural language processing to convert your podcast audio to text. This type of AI can be used to write an accompanying blog or the shownotes for an episode, it could write an entire Twitter thread for you, or you could use AI to create a filter for your TikTok fans. I think the priority here shouldn’t be to churn out as much content as possible, but instead AI should be used to increase our efficiency so we have more time to increase the value of each piece of content – something that is especially useful for smaller teams who may not have the beefy budgets.

I’ve recently downloaded Fathom, a more social podcast player that makes use of AI to allow you to save moments in a podcast and share them with your friends. The player also uses AI to recommend other shows, a general function that Chat GPT itself has told me could be a concern: it may be prone to the same racial or gender biases mentioned, and at the very least “As AI algorithms become more sophisticated, they It may favour popular shows and topics over less well-known ones, making it harder for new and diverse voices to be heard.”

However impressed we are at its current capabilities, AI’s computational power is doubling every six to 10 months, well ahead of Moore’s Law. The implication is that, what we’re seeing now is AI in its infancy. It’s scary but it might just be the most exciting stage of the internet – so far!

Still can’t get your head around what AI actually is? Listen to Meera’s AI podcast recommendations:

Hard Fork – ‘GPT-4 Is Here + The Group Chat Bank Run’

The New York Times weighs in on the latest developments in ChatGPT last week.  Listen on your favourite app >>

Short Wave – ‘Can you teach a computer common sense?’

NPR’s podcast Short Wave discussed the idea of computer thinking back in January, before the release of the latest ChatGPT. Listen on your favourite app >>

Between Two Mics – ‘This Episode Was Written Using ChatGPT’

The remote recording podcast has a play around with AI creativity, with an episode written by ChatGPT. Listen on your favourite app >>

Imaginary Worlds – ‘The Human Touch’

A show that focuses on fantasy and sci-fi worlds, this episodes looks at the way AI has been encroaching on visual art, the legalities of copyright (or lack of them) and what can be gained and lost through AI art. Listen on your favourite app >>

Talks at Google  – ‘Ep210 – Mo Gawdat | Scary Smart: The Future of Artificial Intelligence and How You Can Save Our World’

A conversation from Talks at Google about the bigger picture and concerns with AI. Listen on your favourite app >>

Synthetic Stories – ‘Episode 1 – Amelia’

This Is Distorted has made an entire podcast using AI, from the artwork, to the script, title – and even the Press Release we were sent. Synthetic Stories is a podcast, about a podcast, made by… the podcast? This recommendation was written by a human, however. Listen on your favourite app >>

Stories of Our Time – ‘Artificial intelligence: Bright new future or the end of humanity?’

Stories of Our Time with David Aaronovitch (possibly) asks if machines could be our surgeons, our judges and our artists, what would it then mean to be human? Listen on your favourite app >>

The post Outsourcing to robots: Is Generative AI the death of creativity in podcasting? appeared first on POD BIBLE.

For the sake of my humanity and the industry’s creativity, there needs to be a one-year blanket ban on the production of true crime podcasts.

This may seem counter-intuitive. Netflix’s Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story was just watched for 196.2 million hours in its first week. And Serial’s update on Adnan Syed’s release recently made its way to the top of the Apple Podcasts and Spotify charts – almost eight years since they last reported on the subject. With those commercial successes in mind, it’s going to be nigh impossible to convince the streaming giants and producers eyeing up those ~24.5 million Dahmer viewers (of which I am one) that my proposed ban is a good idea.

But, hear me out.

Every production company has a hand on the teat of this cash cow, trying to milk the true crime genre for everything it’s worth. There’s a steady flow of new podcasts – as well as TV shows and YouTube channels – dedicated to feeding our fascination with the macabre and the taboo in a socially acceptable form. I am not immune to the morbid curiosity – I too rubberneck on the M25 when I spot a crumpled bumper. These shows allow us a peek into an experience that we hope we’ll never have ourselves. From a safe virtual distance, we are free to indulge in and analyse the darker sides of humanity. So, when we get home, we put on our headphones, hit play, and choose to feel fear, adrenaline, and sadness in a controlled environment.

It’s an obsession that is honoured quite accurately in the Hulu show Only Murders in the Building. The first time I listened to Serial or Dirty John, I would try to analyse the psychology of the suspect, think about how I would protect myself in real life, and feel sickened at the events that ensued.

Whilst watching Dahmer last week, however, I realised that the genre has lost its impact. I was watching another human being trapped by a killer, and I felt almost numb to it, as though my tolerance for the graphic detail of a serial killer’s routine had increased. I felt more uncomfortable with my own lack of fear than I did with the storyline itself. (That’s not to say that I think Dahmer’s actions aren’t horrific and unforgivable, and the dramatisation of his crimes and his victims isn’t ethically questionable.) But my thoughts were limited to, “serial killers do slightly different versions of the same thing” and “I feel awful for the people who experienced this then and have to relive it now.”

Could my desensitisation be down to the nights of insomnia that I’d spent consuming video after recommended video of YouTubers applying make up whilst recounting the sickening details of a murder in their latest vodcast? Maybe it’s easier to digest the details of one person eating another when you’re watching the narrator apply Fenty foundation with their new beauty blender.

This vodcast format is creative in its juxtaposition though, I’ll give it that. (And wildly successful – true crime podcasters like John Allen have racked up millions of subscribers on YouTube and then seen that success spill over into the downloads of their podcasts.) Despite the fact that we’ve built successful shows using beautiful sound design, Emmy-award worthy cinematography and hot actors, this creativity is increasingly what’s missing. Something far more important that is often also missing is care when retelling these traumatic events. (Side note: Serial itself is receiving more and more criticism for inaccuracy.Undisclosed explores the story in more depth).

These days, both the audio and visual industries are so keen to push out money-making series as fast as they can that they’re starting to feel repetitive and detached from the reality on which they’re based. Honestly, it’s no surprise to me that the podcast industry hasn’t produced another hit like Serial – a dilemma that Nick Quah ponders in his recent Vulture article. But maybe that’s partly because people are so oversaturated with true crime across mediums.

So perhaps a ban on true crime production will give the podcast industry a good 12 months of planning for the next great true crime show – and then maybe they’ll come out with something worth trading eight hours of my life for and potentially more popular and innovative than the repetitive film/TV offering. By that time, maybe I’ll feel something too.

Listen to Meera’s Podcast Recommendations:

I’ve swapped out true crime for some true-crime-adjacent content:

Alice Isn’t Dead

For those needing a break from the stabbing and gutting,  the ever-popular Alice Isn’t Dead is creatively made up of fictional audio diaries.

Sweet Bobby

Sweet Bobby is a live investigation into catfishing and a less gory places to find drama.

Meera is an award-winning Producer and Content Development Exec. She was selected as one of the Rising Stars of 2022 in the British Podcast Awards, was named Best Entertainment Producer in the 2022 Audio Production Awards, and has won two Lovie Awards. Meera has produced stories for the BBC, Sony Music, Universal, UK Parliament, Waitrose, and other well-known brands. Meera is Ambie nominated, and has had her work featured in The Guardian and The Times and selected as one of Spotify’s Best Episodes Of 2021.

The post Producers should be issued with a ban: No True Crime podcasts for one year appeared first on POD BIBLE.