Following Lawsuit, Rep Admits 'AI' George Carlin Was Human-Written

An anonymous reader shares a report: The estate of George Carlin has filed a federal lawsuit against the comedy podcast Dudesy for an hour-long comedy special sold as an AI-generated impression of the late comedian. But a representative for one of the podcast hosts behind the special now admits that it was actually written by a human. In the lawsuit, filed by Carlin manager Jerold Hamza in a California district court, the Carlin estate points out that the special, "George Carlin: I'm Glad I'm Dead," (which was set to "private" on YouTube shortly after the lawsuit was filed) presents itself as being created by an AI trained on decades worth of Carlin's material. That training would, by definition, involve making "unauthorized copies" of "Carlin's original, copyrighted routines" without permission in order "to fabricate a semblance of Carlin's voice and generate a Carlin stand-up comedy routine," according to the lawsuit. Despite the presentation as an AI creation, there was a good deal of evidence that the Dudesy podcast and the special itself were not actually written by an AI, as Ars laid out in detail this week. And in the wake of this lawsuit, a representative for Dudesy host Will Sasso admitted as much to The New York Times. "It's a fictional podcast character created by two human beings, Will Sasso and Chad Kultgen," spokeswoman Danielle Del told the newspaper. "The YouTube video 'I'm Glad I'm Dead' was completely written by Chad Kultgen." Regardless of that admission, Carlin estate lawyer Josh Schiller told the Times that the lawsuit would move forward. "We don't know what they're saying to be true," he said. "What we will know is that they will be deposed. They will produce documents, and there will be evidence that shows one way or another how the show was created."

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