Podcast Corner: What does AI mean for the future of podcasting?
AI will have all sorts of uses in the production of podcasts. Picture: iStock
If you’re not an NBA fan, chances are you’re not a regular listener to Simmons. After the 2020 sale of his website and podcast network the Ringer to Spotify in 2020, he took up the role overseeing the streaming giant’s global sports strategy. He’s also working on developing podcast monetisation across the board, according to the Verge. So his recent chat with Derek Thompson, host of , about the rise of AI was full of insider morsels about what AI in podcasting could look like.
Imagine shows instantly being available in all languages for a show’s prospective fans around the world. That’s the good side - but what about the murkier side?
Simmons and Thompson touch on hosts assenting to AI models using giving their voices for localised ad reads. Simmons says: "I don't think Spotify is going to get mad at me for this, but we're developing that stuff… There is going to be a way to use my voice for the ads."
They then go a step further: What if AI takes all the episodes of a podcast and is able to develop an unlimited number of new shows depending, perhaps on a listener’s prompts? What if the show can continue forever, long after the host dies?
Thompson points to this podcast with economist Tyler Cowen, which “engages with today’s most underrated thinkers in wide-ranging explorations of their work, the world, and everything in between”.
At the end of March, Cowen talked with guest Jonathan Swift, who died in 1745 - it was a dialogue conducted via ChatGPT4, with answers read by an actor.
Thompson tells Simmons: “We could have, bizarrely, very similar conversations with dead intellectuals asking them how they would respond to issues of the day... It’s not their voice, but maybe 50 years from now, when we have a tonne of recordings of certain people’s voices, we’ll be able to do that too.”
NPR’s economy-focused show is in the midst of a three-part mini-series attempting to do a full episode with AI. The first episode, ‘Rise of the Machines’, reveals their methods, including asking researchers questions that AI came up with - the experts were impressed. The full AI-generated episode will be released this week. Is this the sound of podcasting’s future?
