AI-Generated George Carlin Drops Comedy Special That Daughter Speaks Out Against: ‘No Machine Will Ever Replace His Genius’::Stand-up comedian George Carlin has been brought back to life in an artificial intelligence-generated special called ‘I’m Glad I’m Dead.’
This must be the absolute epitome of this AI replication poor taste… The person who thought it would be a good idea to do this with Carlin, probably the one human who hated human bullshit more than anyone else to have ever existed, is either so out of touch they don’t even vibrate at the same frequency as the rest of existence, or so far up their own ass that they’re staring at their pancreas… An absolutely disgusting move.
“I just want to let you know very clearly that what you’re about to hear is not George Carlin. It’s my impersonation of George Carlin that I developed in the exact same way a human impressionist would"
No, was not developed in the exact same way a human would work, because it’s not human. Should we let pitching machines play pro baseball now, just because they can throw any pitch with pinpoint control?
Should we let pitching machines play pro baseball now, just because they can throw any pitch with pinpoint control?
This is how we end up with Blernsball
The blerns are loaded, the count’s three blerns and two anti-blerns and the infield blern rule is in effect, right?
It’s not the exact same way, but it’s still essentially the same outcome. Your pitching machine example doesn’t make sense because AI doesn’t do anything with pinpoint control.
This objection is similar to saying photography isn’t an art form; all you do is point and press a button. In reality there is a lot more to it than that.
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This is in very poor taste.
I’m not here to rage about the whole human vs machine thing because I honestly don’t give two shits. However, this isn’t very good. The pacing feels like George Carlin, but that’s about it. It’s really more like an edgy Ryan Reynolds.
I disagree. It’s actually pretty good. Hopefully some people will be outraged enough to actually listen to it.
The joke structure is 100% Carlin’s. The delivery is almost perfect. The message is spot-on.
As someone who’s consumed every album and special George Carlin produced, it felt like someone retelling their memory of some of his bits. Like regurgitation. It’d be impressive if your nephew performed this at his thirteenth birthday party after becoming obsessed with Carlin.
It’d be impressive if your nephew performed this at his thirteenth birthday party after becoming obsessed with Carlin.
Given modern generative large language models are still about a decade away from a thirteenth birthday, this is pretty impressive then.
Does anyone remember the Seinfeld AI generation in 2022?
Do we really think this tech is going to stop here and not improve at all after such rapid growth in the past two years?
By the time of its thirteenth birthday I suspect it’s going to have gotten much better at writing jokes.
Agree. It was fun to hear. The bit around 37 mins about what it’s like being dead was fun
This is some kind of bad joke right?
It sounds a lot less like George than I expected.
I listened to it and it’s genuinely not bad (on a content and voice synthesis level), to the point that I have a hard time believing it was entirely AI-generated. If it’s not a fake ghostwritten by the creators, it must have been heavily rerolled and edited to make it so coherent.
I listened to it and it’s genuinely not bad
Of course not. Its predicated on the collected works of a decades-long professional comedian.
If you re-mixed a new screenplay using the combined works of Shakespeare (and called it, idk, West Side Story or 10 Things I Hate About You or The Lion King) you could put together a blockbuster movie fairly easily, too.
If it’s not a fake ghostwritten by the creators, it must have been heavily rerolled and edited to make it so coherent.
The rise of ‘pseudo-AI’: how tech firms quietly use humans to do bots’ work
“Mechanical turk” jobs are way more hellish than any realistic AI dystopia, even though some AI developments use MTurks
The man was a genius for sure 100% I loved every bit of all the shit he said.
Why do all of the comments make it seem like people think that someone asked chatgpt to write a George Carlin routine or whatever? A human person, not a computer, wrote some comedy in (what they felt) was in the style of George Carlin. The technology portion of this was the cloning of Carlin’s voice to “perform” the routine. And you can feel however you want about either part of that. I mean, seems like you’d have to be pretty far up your own ass to think you can just put your own words into the mouth of someone else, especially someone who is no longer in a position to call you a fucking idiot, or not. But the story that people are commenting on, sure seems to be quite different to the actual events that occurred.
As far as the actual story, they know what they did. They know full well that they could have actually did a Carlin impersonation if they had wanted. They could have written their material, went up on stage, said exactly want they were doing, performed their bit, dressed up for the part, hitting as many of the mannerisms as they could. A real, actual, proper attempt at an impersonation. They could have done that, and almost no one would have cared. A few people might have been upset about it, as there always are. But largely, no one would have batted an eye.
But they didn’t do that. They did this. They did this, knowing full well that the claim of it being an “impersonation” was bullshit. And knowing full well what the response would be. And it was exactly the response they wanted. All of the attention and outrage they are getting directed at them right now? That was the point.
Honestly he’s a fairly offensive choice as a first target for this sort of venture, but I haven’t watched the thing yet. Doesn’t seem likely it’ll be full of the cutting political satire we associate with him, and the jokes I’ve seen posted from it are tepid af.
This is hilarious; everyone saying Carlin would hate this is essentially putting words in his mouth just like Dudesy did, but Dudesy put a lot more effort in.
Excellent point.
Fuck whoever did this. That podcaster… Wtf ever. I couldnt even finish reading the article. I am seething with rage at this so hard I’m shaking. I hope the creator of this abomination gets sued so badly, their great grandchildren curse their name because of the inherited debt.
Fucking asshole.
I listened to the first five minutes, and it’s pretty similar to Carlin’s later work.
I’m not clutching my pearls about this any more than Steamboat Willie going into the public domain.
Intellectual property rights are silly, and protecting dead entertainers’ legacies is a waste of time. If a Carlinbot makes a good joke, good for the Carlinbot. What I heard wasn’t very impressive.
Don’t worry, pearls will be clutched anyway. Our society is hungry for outrage.
Those are two very different issues. Steamboat Willie belongs in the public domain as it’s copyright has long been expired. Disney has done some shady shit to keep control over their copywritten material for far too long. It’s good they backed down over that bullshit.
US Copyright law says their work only goes into the public domain 70 years after the creator’s death. Carlin passed away in 2008.I’m bad at math, but uhh…it hasn’t been 70 years yet… right? Or did we all go through a time warp again?
This is just yet another example as to why AI companies need to pay for the data they collect. The artwork and written work displayed on the web still falls under copyright law and thusly the works can only be utilized with express consent from the creators. And yes, until it falls into the public domain.
Now, you could argue that 70 years is too long for copyright to expire. I am open to such an argument. But that simply isnt the case right now for Carlin’s work. Thusly, the creator of this ”work” should indeed be sued (rather brutally imo).
Lastly, even if all this was legal, it’s in incredibly poor taste to do this. It’s one thing for a comic to take inspiration from Carlin, but it would be in poor taste for that same comic to steal his work. This is in even poorer taste from what I see. What a fucking sack of shit this creator is. I hope he dies slowly from sepsis.
Nah, you’re wrong. Fuck protecting creators from AI. Let the internet become a circlejerk of bots gobbling each other’s digital cum.
When a good comedian comes along, I’ll go see a live performance. The same goes for musicians, painters, novelists, whoever. Anyone old enough to remember the internet of the '90s will tell you what a derivative shithole it has become already. It’s only getting worse. Artists will adapt and monetize things that AI can’t ruin the market for.
Analog human culture can be fun in ways that no chatbot will ever know.
Yeah, based off your post history, I don’t value your opinion all that much. And I’m sure the feeling’s mutual.
But hey, you do you, troll.
Don’t get defensive about this.
AI will gobble up all intellectual property and shit out something similar. Over and over over.
Stopping it isn’t an option. And it isn’t society’s job to protect intellectual property owners from new technology in the first place.
Living creators will be able to make a humble living through live appearances and physical media, the same as they have for the last couple of centuries.
This isn’t about your ego, peanut. Your position is the wrong one.
I listened to the whole special, and I can agree with much of what the Carlinbot had to say. I think that’s fun.
I know there’s overwhelming hatred towards the idea of AI doing stuff like this, but I’m curious as to why exactly that is. I hate this about as much as I hate impressionists, which is a somewhat apt comparison. That is to say, I think it’s pretty neat and I’m curious what all went into making it happen, so I can’t say I hate it. Could someone break down why this is awful? Is it a “let the dead lie” kind of thing, keeping the dead sacred? Do we want the AI to be completely original, despite it being derivative in nature? Do we simply want AI not to exist at all? Is it just in poor taste? If so, who do we let define what constitutes good or poor taste?
I see AI as a philosophical issue, as it’s a technology seeking to cross the uncanny valley and simulate consciousness as we understand it, which has serious implications regarding the nature of consciousness, the concept of the self, how we define life and understanding, how much control we grant this artificial life, what rights artificial life should have, and plenty of other conundrums along the way. I honestly don’t think it’s as simple as “Carlin wouldn’t like this”, as this video is ultimately an unsatisfactory impression of a man that only goes on for one hour. There are worse things in the world we could be lambasting (as the Carlinbot points out mid-video), but there are clearly some implications involved that people are very upset by. So, where do we go from here?
From the perspective of his daughter who knew George Carlin personally, I can see how this would be disturbing. It’s as if someone strung up a dead relative like a puppet and put on a show.
I think in more abstract terms from someone who just saw his standup, it’s a fun novelty as long as they’re not profiting from it or misrepresenting it.
My thoughts exactly. It’s being represented as exactly what it is, but I don’t think the daughter raised by George Carlin would be happy about it.
It reminds me of the quote, “Immitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”
People are using his likeness to gain attention and probably money. They could go and record those jokes and rants themselves but nobody would be interested in listening.
With impressionists you can clearly see that they’re huge fans paying homage to someone they respect. With AI it feels like lazily cashing in on someone’s death. You just swap out the name for another popular comedian and boom, more views and money. It’s the commoditization of culture, like the equivalent of replacing hand crafted wood furniture with flat pack particle board.
Assuming we kill capitalism and form a more utopic society (which the Carlinbot amusingly is all for, but also cynically doesn’t think is possible), would AI recreations of existing or previously existing people still be an issue to you? I’m morbidly curious what an AI “me” would be like, and I can imagine others being against something like that coming to be.
To me, AI is a helpful reference and information transformation tool. I have no issue with the technology any more than I do with a word processor. It’s all about how it’s used so it’s 100% about context for me, and in this context, it’s clearly a cynical and lazy cash grab by a washed up tech bro comedian.
So, where do we go from here?
I do not kno. Though, I for 1, support all future Cockatrice.
Carlin’s entire schtick was anti-intellectual platitudinous. He reminds me of Trump with a sense of humor.
Which jokes of his are anti-intellectual?
For starters, his famous “think of how dumb the average person is, half of people are dumber than that.”
Only a small percent of people would be perceptibly below average. Like single digits. It’s circlejerk humor.
And as far as humor goes, I think he’s great. Just not a genius nor a prophet.
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It’s not though. But I like your take on it, except you butchered it lol
Or can you substantiate that claim with broader context? I can’t remember the setup to the premise.
I guess we could ask Carlinbot.
In a scenario where the average IQ is 200? Do you understand what you’re talking about? You realize that the majority of people are exactly average, with a bit fuzziness, right? No? Then I guess Carlin is for you.
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But how is that anti-intellectual? Maybe it’s literally saying most people aren’t intellects? But taking the literal interpretation of this joke misses the joke as the other guy pointed out.
I’m not reading into it literally, that’s the point. On the surface, Carlin “tells it like it is.” He says things that the people agree with.
You know what? Just look at the praise for Carlin. You’ll see things like “genius” and “prophet” or “brilliant insight.”
Then look at people criticizing him like me. Suddenly people defend his character by pointing out he’s just a comedian, it’s just jokes, judge him as a comedian, it’s not serious, etc.
He’s the Trump of his domain.
You didn’t really answer the question…
