By Thomas Urbain, AFP<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nWith the rise of generative AI, many worry about synthetic content of poor quality — often called “AI slop” — flooding the internet.
\nPhoto: 123RF\n<\/p>\n
Artificial intelligence now makes it possible to mass-produce podcasts with completely virtual hosts, a development that is disrupting an industry still finding its footing and operating on a fragile business model.<\/p>\n
Since Google launched Audio Overview, the first mass-market podcast generator that creates shows from documents and other inputs, just over a year ago, a wave of startups has rushed in, from ElevenLabs to Wondercraft.<\/p>\n
No studio, no humans at the microphone, not even a recording – yet out comes a lively podcast, banter and all. Whether based on a legal document or a school handout, AI tools can deliver a state-of-the-art podcast at the click of a mouse.<\/p>\n
A pioneer in this movement is Inception Point AI, which was launched in 2023 and releases about 3000 podcasts per week with a team of just eight people.<\/p>\n
The immediate goal is to play the volume game, said Jeanine Wright, Inception’s founder and the former number two at leading audio studio Wondery.<\/p>\n
With each episode costing one dollar to produce, a mere 20 listens is enough to turn a profit. Automation has lowered the threshold for selling advertising space — previously set at several thousand downloads.<\/p>\n
Wright gives the example of a “hyper-niche” program about pollen counts in a specific city, heard by a few dozen people that can attract antihistamine advertisers.<\/p>\n
With the rise of generative AI, many worry about synthetic content of poor quality – often called “AI slop” – flooding the internet, particularly social media.<\/p>\n
Inception mentions AI’s role in every episode, a disclosure that generates “very little drop-off” among listeners, Wright told AFP.<\/p>\n
“We find that if people like the (AI) host and the content, then they don’t care that it’s AI-generated or they’ve accepted it.”<\/p>\n
Finding an audience<\/p>\n
Martin Spinelli, a podcast professor at Britain’s University of Sussex, decried a flood of content that will make it “harder for independent podcasters to get noticed and to develop a following” without the promotional budgets on the scale of Google or Apple.<\/p>\n
The expected surge in programming will also cut into the advertising revenue of non-AI podcasts.<\/p>\n
“If someone can make 17 cents per episode, and then suddenly they make 100,000 episodes, that 17 cents is going to add up,” warned Nate DiMeo, creator of “The Memory Palace,” a pioneering podcast for history buffs.<\/p>\n
The industry veteran, whose program began in 2008, said he’s skeptical about the mass adoption of AI podcasts.<\/p>\n
But even if listener tastes don’t change significantly, a glut of AI podcasts can “still impact the art form,” independent podcasting where most programs are barely managing to stay afloat.<\/p>\n
Currently, the three major platforms – Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube – don’t require creators to disclose when a podcast was created by AI.<\/p>\n
“I would pay money for an AI tool that helps me cut through that noise,” said Spinelli, who finds the streaming giants ineffective at connecting niche content with its target audience.<\/p>\n
Wright argues it’s pointless to draw a dividing line between AI and non-AI content because “everything will be made with AI,” to one degree or another.<\/p>\n
She does believe, however, that AI-generated podcasts with synthetic voices will emerge as a distinct genre – somewhat like live-action films and animation, which have proven their storytelling potential and appeal over time.<\/p>\n
“People dismissing all AI-generated content as slop right now are being thoughtless, because there’s a lot of great, compelling AI content that deserves their interest.”<\/p>\n
DiMeo doesn’t see it that way.<\/p>\n
He compares podcasting to reading a novel or listening to a song.<\/p>\n
You simply want to connect “with some other human consciousness,” he said. “Without that, I find there’s less reason to listen.”<\/p>\n
– AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Thomas Urbain, AFP With the rise of generative AI, many worry about synthetic content of poor quality…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75239,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[365,363,364,48,47,111,43,139,69,49,46,44,45,145],"class_list":["post-75238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-audio","tag-current-affairs","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}