JIM TREACHER: Did Somebody Really Make an AI George Carlin Album?

Hey, wait a second. Doesn’t Will Sasso do impressions?

Well, sort of…

He’s no Fred Travalena. But he can kinda sound like a bunch of people who are more famous than he is.

Does Will Sasso do a George Carlin impression? You know what, I’ll bet he does. I’ll bet that’s what you just heard. I’ll bet it’s no more an AI than Crow T. Robot is.

Here’s how you do it, folks:

Write an hour’s worth of middling Carlin-esque material. Deliver it in your middling Carlin-esque voice. Slap a purposely fake-sounding laugh track over it, and pair it with a bunch of AI-generated images.

Then claim it was all completely generated by an AI, created by some secret startup company that made you sign an NDA so you can’t talk about it. And if people want to know more, they gotta check out your dumb podcast.

Presto! Instant free publicity. Bad press is better than no press, right?

Gotta admit, as cynical as it is, it’s a clever reversal. Instead of an AI that makes you think it’s a human, it’s a human trying to make you think he’s an AI.

Sure, Max Headroom did it 40 frickin’ years ago, but…

Exit questions: “Which scenario is less ethical: Creating an AI to emulate a dead comedian for a cynical cash-grab? Or pretending you created an AI to emulate a dead comedian, also for a cynical cash-grab? Good work, Will Sasso. You proved artificial intelligence isn’t the only thing that can get a lot of press for being mediocre yet vaguely evil.”