With the debut of the first Artificial Intelligence (AI) personality on Portland’s Live 95.5, the possibility of hearing the GOATs of Radio (Greatest Of All Time) back on the air took a giant step closer to becoming a reality.
The DJ Hall of Fame
Imagine your favorite radio personality returning to the airwaves via voice cloning and the use of Artificial Intelligence. When I first wrote about this, over a year and a half ago, it seemed like something that would be five to ten years away, not 18-months.
Netflix
The most popular video streamer offers viewers content that is produced from all over the world, in the native language of the country it was produced. Netflix either has to offer this content with subtitles or voice-dubbing.
Netflix research has found the majority of its subscribers prefer voice-dubbing to subtitles. AI technology offers Netflix to have voices that sound the same as the original actors through voice sampling. Two additional benefits are that using this technology is faster than hiring actors to read and record the dialog, and it’s cheaper too.
Voice Sampling
Companies such as WellSaid have developed Artificial Intelligence technology that uses just a small sample of a person’s voice and can then re-create that voice to say anything a person types on a computer keyboard.
ChatGPT-4
Last week I had Chat GPT write an article for this blog. What was amazing to see, was the speed at which it happened.
As many readers pointed out, it broke no new ground about the future of commercial broadcast radio in the United States but simply rehashed all that has already been said.
Then Alpha Media’s Top 40 KBFF (Live 95.5) in Portland, Oregon announced it had become the world’s first radio station to use an AI DJ, made possible through the use of Futuri’s RadioGPT. Using the voice of the real Ashley Elzinga aka Ashley Z, the midday personality on Live 95.5, AI Ashley was “born”.
This is the Tweet that demonstrated how both the real Ashley Z and AI Ashley sound: TWITTER LINK
After you’ve listened to the demo, you should take a little extra time to read all the comments that follow Ashley Z’s Tweet. Especially the ones that think the station should change its branding from “Live 95.5” to something more like “artificial 95.5”.
If the power of radio is the personal connection an air personality makes with a listener, can this connection be made artificially?
Ashley Z
KBFF’s website has this bio of Ashley Elzinga:
Ashley got her break in radio thanks to an internship with Ryan Seacrest at his famous Ryan Seacrest Productions in Los Angeles, CA. She’s been on the air in Sacramento, Atlanta, Cleveland, Dallas, Austin, Seattle, and now Portland!
She’s currently studying business at Harvard Business School Online and hopes to earn her MBA in the next few years.
Ashley loves to read and is obsessed with skincare and her 2 kitties, Oakley and Raspberry.
Sounds like Ashley Z has plans beyond her current radio gig, once she obtains that advanced degree from Harvard.
Dan Ingram, Larry Lujack, Robert W. Morgan, The Real Don Steele…
It seemed like 18-months ago I was “spit balling” the future, but we now can see that having radio’s GOATs back on the air and doing their thing, artificially, is closer than you might have thought. The technology to do it is here today, however the sticking point for seeing this reality, will most likely be the many legal issues over the rights to using these voices. Unlike on TV, the law in real life is a slow moving process.
Rewound Radio
Until that day arrives, I will enjoy radio’s GOATs on Rewound Radio’s DJ Hall of Fame, that airs every Saturday afternoon from 12-3pm (EST) on https://rewoundradio.com
After all, who wants “New Coke” when you can have “The Real Thing.”