Ashley 'Alive' and 'AI Ashley'-this radio station just created the world's first AI DJ

Radio station Live 95.5 has announced that its traditional (human) DJ Ashley will be replaced (part-time) by "AI Ashley" courtesy RadioGPT.

The Radio station will use use an AI tool called RadioGPT (Twitter)

Live 95.5, a radio station based in Portland, Oregon, recently made an announcement that divide opinion among listeners like few things have done in the past. The radio station has revealed its plan to use an AI tool called RadioGPT, developed by Futuri Media and clone the voice of its popular DJ. This tool utilizes the advanced capabilities of GPT-4, an artificial intelligence model, to generate a script based on trending news, which is then read by a synthetic voice known as "AI Ashley." Yes, it will be a cloned voice of the real Ashley who is very mcuh alive and kicking, but not, seemingly, in protest.

To address concerns, Live 95.5 assured listeners that the AI host, AI Ashley, would not replace the traditional human host, Ashley Elzinga, reported TechCrunch. The parent company of the station, Alpha Media, clarified that it was a hybrid approach, where both traditional "live" Ashley and AI Ashley would coexist during different segments. The human host would continue to carry out various responsibilities such as community engagement, managing social media, and working on digital assets. And yes, Ashley will be paid the same salary as earlier.

Importantly, the synthetic voice resembled the existing radio host that the audience had already connected with. But the AI voice, although similar, clearly identified itself as AI Ashley and would be easily recognised by listeners as being artificial.

Alpha Media emphasized that the adoption of RadioGPT was not driven by cost-saving measures but rather as an efficient tool to enhance the capabilities of radio hosts. In effect, for example, if AI Ashley is on Air, then the real Ashley would be doing various other things as part of the job. In effect, Athe real shley will have an able assisstant (AI Ashley) to depend on while she did something else that was of critical importance too. Seemingly, two "people" doing the job in a much more efficient way.

However, the introduction of AI DJs faced mixed reactions from the public, particularly on Twitter. Some expressed disappointment, feeling that it was disrespectful to the radio profession.

Alpha Media, overseeing more than 200 radio stations across the United States, positioned themselves as the world's first radio broadcasting company with an AI DJ.

How RadioGPT works

Futuri's RadioGPT scanned a vast array of news sources, including social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, to identify local trending topics. GPT-3, an integral part of the tool, was utilized to create scripts based on these trending stories. Human moderators would then review and edit the content, TechCrunch revealed. Notably, this is expected to ensure inaccurate content, referred to as "hallucination," would mot be disseminated.