NBC to use AI version of announcer Al Michaels' voice for Olympics recaps | Hacker News Reader

NBC to use AI version of announcer Al Michaels' voice for Olympics recaps

cnn.com

15 pointsbelter16 comments

> The company said the highlights could be packaged in about 7 million different ways, pulled from 5,000 hours of live coverage in Paris, effectively making AI (the artificial intelligence, not the man) a significantly more efficient way to deliver personalized recaps.

Another example of genAI's biggest use case being mass production of marketing slop.

This will about as personalized as those emails that start with "Hi {{NAME}}"

Because of the font choice, it looks like it is saying "Al version of announcer Al Michaels’". :-)

By the looks of it, Al (not AI) has agreed with it.

I guess that's going to be the future for the society where the likeness and voices will be reused over and over again using AI.

Futurama called it 20 years ago! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r09RObzSTQ4

Music industry has been doing this already, for at least a decade now.

How so?

Remix of a remix of a remix? Finding an old recording and making it new again? Taking an old mix and adding old vocals to it? They've been doing it for decades and let's just say results aren't always that great. We think because it's "tape" it's better or ok to do it, but ultimately it comes down to the same result... synthetic montage and complete creation of poor material.

That’s really different… not sure where your hate of remixes come from but reuse of previous art to form new art is not the same as replacing announcers with synthetic versions of their voice

I just really can't agree that it's at all comparable.

Hatsune Miku ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatsune_Miku ) has done live performances: https://youtu.be/jhl5afLEKdo?si=GFDC01IKkJDNIkmS

> A NBC spokesperson told CNN Michaels is being compensated for his involvement.

If he made a smart deal (not a one-time payment, but paid for amount of AI voice used) this might be a good thing for him.

Like those rando YouTube shorts about WWII?

If consumers accept artificial voices, then who’s to say if the content for local consumption is produced locally or by foreigners?

Just another job killed by AI. But don't worry yours is safe.

What do people like you expect to happen, really? Do you think all of humanity is going to be like "Oopsy, let's stop developing this technology!"? Do you think companies are going to stop using everything at their disposal to maximize profits, 'cause our jobs are at risk?

Or maybe, it's not the technology to blame, or the companies using that technology, but something more fundamental?

People like me expect to not need to change jobs every 5 minutes because a new AI development replaces it. Because people like me can see the world around them and expect zero support from a government who places blame for all this on people like me. And if anything can be learned from history, people like me will get fed up at some point and make the people not like me stick their snarky comments some unpleasant place and burn everything down while at it. And I'd honestly hate for this to happen. Because people like me don't hate technology but what gets done with it while obliviously claiming "but there's nothing we can do".

> People like me expect to not need to change jobs every 5 minutes because a new AI development replaces it

So, again, what do you expect to happen? New technology comes along and your company doesn't embrace it?

> And if anything can be learned from history, people like me will get fed up at some point and make the people not like me stick their snarky comments some unpleasant place and burn everything down while at it

Can we? Can you point to some instances in which workers displaced by technological progress "burned everything down"?

> Because people like me don't hate technology but what gets done with it while obliviously claiming "but there's nothing we can do".

Notably, I didn't claim anything like "there's nothing we can do" - I'm just curious what you think we should actually do, instead of just complaining about the technology and progress.

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