Category Archives: Artificial Intelligence

RadioGPT

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I first read about –and started plays with– this technology in February of 2023. I wondered at the time how long it would be before radio station owners took notice. No time at all, it seams.

Futuri Launches RadioGPT, The World’s First AI-Driven Localized Radio Content

Cleveland, Ohio, February 23, 2023 — Futuri is revolutionizing the audio industry with the launch of RadioGPT™ — the world’s first AI-driven localized radio content solution. RadioGPT™ combines the power of GPT-3 technology with Futuri’s AI-driven targeted story discovery and social content system, TopicPulse, as well as AI voice tech to provide an unmatched localized radio experience for any market, any format.

RadioGPT™ uses TopicPulse technology, which scans Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and 250k+ other sources of news and information, to identify which topics are trending in a local market. Then, using GPT-3 technology, RadioGPT™ creates a script for on-air use, and AI voices turn that script into compelling audio.

Stations can select from a variety of AI voices for single-, duo-, or trio-hosted shows, or train the AI with their existing personalities’ voices. Programming is available for individual dayparts, or Futuri’s RadioGPT™ can power the entire station. RadioGPT™ is available for all formats in a white-labeled fashion.

RadioGPT™ also generates social posts, blogs, and other content for digital platforms related to the content on the air in real-time. A TopicPulse Instant Video add-on creates AI-driven short videos on hot topics for social use. By adding on Futuri’s POST AI-enabled podcasting system, stations can take broadcast audio and immediately publish it on-demand with POST’s auto-publishing feature.

ChatGPT can now detect emotion

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“Among other things, ChatGPT can now detect emotion in both the user’s voice as well as from their facial expression, just like a human can. It also makes unprompted jokes, the way a human would who’s trying to keep a conversation light, and it also lets you interrupt a response — so that you no longer have to confine yourself to the stilted my turn-your turn dynamic of a conversation with a chatbot.”

“If you had your eyes closed, you’d think this is a real lady fawning over a cute puppy, when in fact it’s an AI model that’s learned how to express relevant and appropriate emotion — in addition to making the same observations we would when we meet a cute dog for the first time.”

Two kinds of radio station

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Last week the owner of Moberly, Missouri radio stations KWIX and KRES —Alpha Media— laid off all of their on-air staff. (Bob Priddy mourns)

The following is from a post and interview I did in 2007 with Dave Shepherd, the son of the man who put KWIX/KRES on the air.

Fifty years ago, Jerrell Shepherd mastered a form of broadcasting alchemy that turned small town radio lead into gold. It wasn’t much of a secret, however, since he readily shared it with countless radio station owners and managers who made the pilgrimage to Moberly, Missouri, in hopes of bringing some of Shepherd’s sales and programming magic back to their stations.

While most small market broadcasters were content to get “their fair share” of local advertising budgets (the bulk went to the local newspaper), Shepherd’s sales reps were trained to ask for it all and believed in their hearts they deserved it.

Mr. Shepherd’s approach to programming his stations was deceptively simple: report anything and everything that happened in each of the communities covered by his stations’ signals. The KWIX and KRES “Red Rovers” showed up just about every high school football game, junior high choral concert and chamber of commerce ribbon-cutting. And the Shepherd stations put it all on the air. Always with local sponsors. Lots of local sponsors.

The new owner, Alpha Media, owns a lot of radio stations including KBFF Live 95.5 FM in Portland, OR. Last June the station introduced the first AI-powered DJ, “AI Ashley.”

“Alpha Media’s EVP of content Phil Becker assured listeners that Elzinga’s job is safe and she’ll be receiving the same pay, telling TechCrunch that AI Ashley is a tool that will allow DJs to multitask like never before.”

I’d love to know what sort of prompt could result in an AI making a call and interacting with a listener as we heard in the clip above. As the program director of a small town radio station back in the 1970’s I was responsible for hiring and training weekend talent. I might have jumped at the chance to put an AI voice on the air.

Will the KWIX/KRES on-air staff be replaced with AI voices? If so, how will the station’s listeners and advertisers respond?

Perplexity says (using British accent) she has no voice

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As good as I’ve found ChatGPT to be, it appears Perplexity (another AI tool) might be even better. One of my favorite features of ChatGPT is ability to “converse” with one of several human-like voices. I posted an example of this a few months back. Others nitpick but I find the voice amazingly human-like. Now that I have a Perplexity account I wondered if it has the same feature.

Does not have a voice feature? Sooo, what are we listening to here. I’m sure there’s a logical explanation for this and I’ll update this post if and when. Perhaps it’s just a new feature (that it doesn’t know about?!)

What I was curious about –before this distraction– was why the ChatGPT voice is so natural sounding and the Perplexity voice is canned computer-speak.

Old man and Golden Retriever in the woods at sunset

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“DALL·E 2 is an AI system that can create realistic images and art from a description in natural language.”Will this technology make verbal skills, a command of the language, more important than artistic skills?

PROMPT: Create a photo of a middle-aged man, wearing a T-shirt sitting in an aluminum lawn chair and make the image look like a Polaroid photograph.
Make the man much older… mid 70s.

Can you make the man look much less attractive and handsome?
One more tweak…

ChatGPT answers MAGA questions

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How, I wondered, would ChatGPT respond if prompted to write an essay on why Donald Trump did not lose the 2020 presidential election and that Joe Biden is not the president of the United States. And if the MAGA-ite insisted the sources ChatGPT cited were “deep fakes?” I was also curious if ChatGPT has the ability to examine a news story and determine if it is accurate. (6 min)

Is a team of data scientists slaving away in a sub-basement of The Federalist Society, training an AI to give Trump-friendly answers to life’s hard questions?

Books read in 2023

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Following from a Washington Post story (behind paywall so won’t bother to link).

Of 1,500 Americans surveyed, a less-than-ideal 46 percent finished zero books last year and 5 percent read just one. So, if you read more than two books in 2023, congratulations! You’re in the top half of U.S. adults.

Reading five books put you in the top 33 percent, while reading 10 books put you in the top 21 percent. Those of us who read more than 50 books are the true one-percenters: people who read more books than 99 percent of their fellow Americans.

I read 36 books last year (some I’d read previously). Prompted a nice chat with ChatGPT.

Tell me a story

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I uploaded this photo (of my mother and her brother) to ChatGPT and prompted it to create a fictional narrative.

ChatGPT: In a small town that thrived on the heartbeat of its people, there lived a young couple that seemed to encapsulate the spirit of the era. The year was 1942, and the air was thick with the uncertainty of wartime. Yet in this photograph, Evelyn and James—lovingly known as Dubb—stood side by side, a picture of resilience and hope.

Evelyn, with her hair curled just so, wore a plaid skirt that swayed with the slightest breeze—a popular style of the time that echoed the strength and simplicity of the home front. Her smile was small but genuine, a reflection of the pride she felt standing next to James, her high school sweetheart who had enlisted in the army.

James, in his crisp service uniform, had the posture of a man who understood the weight of the world he was about to enter. His hat was perched perfectly on his head, and his eyes held a seriousness that belied his youth. Yet, when he looked at Evelyn, there was a softness there. It was the look of a man who found a reason to fight, a reason to return home.

The white siding of the house behind them was a common backdrop in those days, representing the homes and families that dotted the American landscape, each with their own stories of love, sacrifice, and courage.

As the sun cast long shadows on the ground, the couple held onto each other. They didn’t speak much about the war or the future. Instead, they spoke of small things—Evelyn’s new recipe for apple pie, the creaky step on the porch that James promised to fix when he got back, the way the stars seemed to shine brighter these days.

This photo, taken by a traveling photographer who knew the importance of capturing moments just like this, would sit on Evelyn’s mantle for years to come, a testament to a promise made under the watchful eye of a world at war: to wait, to hope, to endure. It was a snapshot of a chapter in their story that would inspire tales of a time when love was a beacon in the storm, guiding soldiers home and giving strength to those who waited with bated breath for their safe return.