AI (artificial intelligence) is proving it can do more and more things we once thought only human beings could do. The latest is podcasting. Akos Balogh, a thoughtful Christian blogger, recently set AI the task of producing a podcast using his own writing.
“‘Hey, come and check this out!’ I yell out to my teenage daughter.
“I had just generated a 10-minute podcast episode (yes, an entire podcast episode) using Google’s new Notebook LM website. I uploaded a PDF of my latest blog post, pressed a button (no prompting required), and out came a 10-minute audio file with the voice of a man and woman discussing my article in a ‘deep dive’ format.
“‘Turn it off!’ says my daughter. ‘It’s too weird!’.“
Well, it is weird, and it got even more meta when Balogh got AI to do a podcast about him writing that AI could do podcasts.
“And for something even more spooky, here’s an AI generated podcast about AI generated podcasts (i.e. the above blogpost):
https://1drv.ms/u/s!AkG9NFdH9yhRgtVfsKzL9CWC6uh1sw?e=R8d1vS“
Part of the weirdness is that these podcasts discuss Australian content in American voices. That won’t last long.
Well, are we “latter day luddites” – a term journo Graeme Cole used at the recent Australasian Religious Press Association conference when discussing our coms future? Should we distrust tech when it disrupts? Some early Christian responses are extremely cautious – a good example is “AI Has No Place in the Pulpit” in Christianity Today – and the headline is a good summary of the piece. Other Christians want to embrace AI enthusiastically. https://www.sermonai.com says it will help you with your sermons.
Balogh would suggest that however discombobulating new technology is, we can and should embrace it using it thoughtfully.
And there have been a number of gatherings debating what this thoughtfulness might mean – for example, a preaching intensive at Morling College this year.
Balogh had his own exposition about AI at Moore College earlier this year.
At first, it was the academy that was concerned about AI and student-generated content. For the moment, the rules are being worked out. It’s early days yet, and we can expect more uses to emerge.
Using a different AI program, Michael Jensen has been resurrecting dead white preachers.
One poster pointed to a cultural apologetics pod that’s AI-generated. https://open.spotify.com/episode/5yKj5hu0jcGAKcTWmfmDW5
With a newspaper background, I am possibly more used to changes in technology, sometimes savage changes, than preachers, most of whom still have big bookshelves in their studies.
When I worked in the old Fairfax building on Broadway, the reassuring rumble of the presses starting up at edition time seemed to be a timeless part of the industry.
But those presses, buried into the Sydney sandstone, were obsolete. And the rivers of molten lead that flowed across level three, with its banks of linotype machines where skilled craftsmen converted journo’s words into raised type, and the skilled compositors that locked those words into a “forme” of type had already disappeared in places like New york. A strong union held back changes, but they came.
I still see how the craftsmen (yes, they were all men; women were banned from the printing floors) are doing on the retired employees’ Facebook page that preserves memories. And the class distinctions of the old days are still preserved – the ex-journos have separate pages online.
One day, those discombobulated by AI will be able to remember those days long ago when technological change swept in – just like the reminiscences of the compositors and linotype operators that I first met on level three on Broadway.
Image credit: https://www.vpnsrus.com/wikimedia