WaPo reports.
George Carlin's daughter Kelly said: "The ‘George Carlin’ in that video is not the beautiful human who defined his generation and raised me with love. It is a poorly-executed facsimile cobbled together by unscrupulous individuals to capitalize on the extraordinary goodwill my father established with his adoring fan base."
How is it different from a live human being who does a George Carlin impersonation? We've accepted impersonators for a long time. They "capitalize on the extraordinary goodwill" of beloved performers. Is it that impersonators need to work hard and we respect human labor? Or is it that they are human and we can imagine being an impersonator but we can't imagine being A.I.?
Here's the discussion at the George Carlin subreddit: "In case you needed more proof that AI is fucking monstrous garbage."
Posts
32 comments:
Really don't think it is copyright infringement, unless it spit out substantially the same jokes as Carlin wrote and recorded - there must be a fixation for there to be copyright protection at all. I could see a right of publicity type of claim, but not copyright infringement.
The Reddit crowd says it's bad, real bad. It doesn't appear anyone there can compose a sentence with using "fuck" or a form thereof, I suppose in tribute to their hero. I liked Carlin's act, but disagreed with him on a few things.
If it's bad, it will fail on its own merit, just like a bad impressionist.
But isn't the essence of comedy, the individual's creativity? Using A.I. to mimic Carlin or any other human artist is the same thing as using a random number generator to mimic higher math. It might have some similarities, but they would end pretty quickly for an informed devotee.
Trademark infringement/false designation of origin seems more likely - the promoters of the AI performance are falsely calling this a "George Carlin" performance.
The only thing worse than the real George Carlin is an AI Carlin. And Carlin's estate shouldn't be too worried, once Carlin's boomer fans die out, no one will care.
Here are some the "funniest Carlin jokes" per Google:
"A house is just a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get more stuff."
"Some people have no idea what they're doing, and a lot of them are really good at it.
I can see why an AI could copy that.
Pretty soon we'll have AI Seinfelt and AI Tina Fey when all we really need is AI Norm MacDonald.
Parody technology trained with biased input.
Is this thing an impersonator or an imposter?
Cut Kelly a check and all will be forgiven.
An impersonator/performer doesn't appropriate the other person's identitY and pass it off as his or her own. Rich Little performed as Rich Little impersonating various other people. When Dana Carvery impersonated George W Bush he did so as Dana Carvey mimicking certain facial expression and the President's voice.
I wonder if I could write a blog called Althouse using AI whereby I might, innocently of course, capitalize on the extraordinary goodwill generated over the last 20 years by the "real" Althouse. Maybe that's already happening. Not by me but perhaps others? How do I know I'm even in the right place typing this right now. It's all very Matrix-y.
An impersonator/performer doesn't appropriate the other person's identitY and pass it off as his or her own. Rich Little performed as Rich Little impersonating various other people. When Dana Carvery impersonated George W Bush he did so as Dana Carvey mimicking certain facial expression and the President's voice.
I wonder if I could write a blog called Althouse using AI whereby I might, innocently of course, capitalize on the extraordinary goodwill generated over the last 20 years by the "real" Althouse. Maybe that's already happening. Not by me but perhaps others? How do I know I'm even in the right place typing this right now. It's all very Matrix-y.
This will be interesting if it goes to court. This AI training copyright concern is big in the software development are now with AI assisted coding that was trained on open source code which may vary on its license requirements.
Borrowing from trademark, one could argue there is a greater "likelihood of [actual] confusion" associated with an AI impersonation compared to the limitations of a natural human doing an impression under some fair use or parody exception.
They "capitalize on the extraordinary goodwill" of beloved performers
Back when newspapers were something, newspaper columnists would get really lazy in the summer when they still had deadlines to meet. One time Mike Barnacle got really lazy and submitted a bunch of George Carlin bits that the Globe ran anyways. Back then such things were embarrassing to a newspaper so there was a big fight for Barnacle to keep his job. I think the solution was to promote Barnacle out of the newspaper and onto NBC or something.
The Carlin kicker: George lavished praise on Barnacle. Now, I suppose Carlin could have been the forgiving type but the gushing about Barnacle was a bit excessive for him, especially since towards the end of his life he was quite bitter at times ...
You could look at this as kind of kind of like industrial espionage.
The Carlin AI people made a product that is clearly distinct and different in several important ways from an original product, but they couldn't have done it without taking the results of years of work and product development, of brilliant marketing and carefully cultivated consumer relations, of brand building, not to mention years of original creative innovation. And they took those things without consent or compensation.
They essentially reverse engineered a popular product and made a cheap knock off.
"We buy things we don't need, with money we don't have, to impress people we don't like. ..."
That's been attributed to lots of people including Carlin. Regardless of who, it speaks a great truth.
We're all the less with the passing of Carlin. His understanding of the Elite - "They don't give a [shiitte] about you at all, at all" - is a bedrock principle of life. This video gives Carlin raw and straight,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7U5JVk_y7U
* John D Rockefeller, "I don’t want a nation of thinkers, I want a nation of workers." = Working for me and my ilk
"How is it different from a live human being who does a George Carlin impersonation?"
How are naughty AI-generated pics of Taylor Swift any more heinous than a movie depicting the assassination of a sitting US president?
My head! She spins!
Want a good laugh?
Scroll through this video of "Joey Voices" from Malden, Mass:
'Joey Voices' Highlight Reel.
Cher @3:07 is a... highpoint?
Carlin was entertaining for a while but as already mentioned, in later life he was just a pissy old man. Same thing ruined Bruce but at least Bruce had reasons to be pissy.
Picture a Boomer…saying the seven words you can’t say on TV… forever!
JSM
Carlin mocked the idea of an afterlife in many of his comedy routines.
So...wouldn't it be ironic if there is one, and he is smiling down from Heaven, or scowling up from Hell, over the post mortem appropriation of his image, voice and comedic shtick?
Why the fuck should I give a shit if some cocksucking motherfucking cunt with an AI interface wants to piss that bitter old man's grave?
Also, tits.
Carlin liked to dish it out, he and his lefty daughter can take some right up the keister.
“Using A.I. to mimic Carlin or any other human artist is the same thing as using a random number generator to mimic higher math.” This statement is so far afield that it’s not, as they say, even wrong.
"Picture a Boomer…saying the seven words you can’t say on TV… forever!"
Carlin wasn't a boomer. Just sayin'.
"How is it different from a live human being who does a George Carlin impersonation?"
This got me to think. In the music world there are probably thousands of successful cover bands and the Beatles, in particular, have had lookalikes cover their shows. We're used to seeing that. Aside from an impressionist doing quick vocal bits has anyone done an entire act as another comedian?
Bill Kirchenbauer produced a show at Vegas about 20 some years ago called Legends of Comedy or similar that featured comedians impersonating/doing the materials/acts of other comedians. It is rare.
This is an area in which the producers almost certainly had a legal opinion that was used to secure insurance. The defense is likely to win, but this will be the example that will be the focus of SAG/AFTRA lobbying in state legislatures. Their lobbying is effective because they get celebrities to show up and state legislators are starstruck.
It's an interesting premise that I would enjoy with a human impersonator. AI, no, I would not accept that.
Yet. We'll accept all of this in short order.
AI sucks
up photos, music, text, voices, formulas and art.
The vacuum of the world.
I suggest legislation to identify AI copies of humans, utilizing the gimmick by which a hologram of a human was identified as such on the old Brit sitcom "Red Dwarf." The hologram of the nebbish crewman, Arnold Rimmer, had a large letter "H" on its forehead.
Requiring all AI human images to have "AI" visibly printed on their foreheads would solve all issues of illegitimacy, fraud, and fakery by making it plain that one is watching computer generated content, not real humans. I say, make it so!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Rimmer
Post a Comment