I was on my lunch break at work, empathizing with how a raccoon could be driven to drink themselves into a stupor, when a friend leaned over to me and said, “there’s a lot of work being done in this office using ChatGPT.” It turned out she was referring to a partner! Guess this partner missed Google CEO Sundar Pichai recently telling BBC News that AI is prone to errors, eyeroll. Oh, how I despair… But finally we have one prominent company taking a stand! Shortly before Thanksgiving, iHeartRadio announced a new “Guaranteed Human” policy wherein all AI music, podcasts, DJs, or anything else AI-generated are banned from their stations. Details of the policy were laid out in a letter sent to staff by Tom Poleman, iHeart’s president and chief programming officer:

Starting Monday (Nov. 24), “‘Guaranteed Human’ is a core part of our brand,” Poleman wrote. “You’ll hear it in our imaging, and we want listeners to feel it every time they tune in.” iHeartRadio DJs must now add a line to their hourly legal IDs about being “Guaranteed Human.”

“Remember, this isn’t a tagline — it’s a promise,” Poleman added. “And it’s part of every station’s personality.”

News of the pro-human content initiative comes after recent headlines about the growth — and increasing indistinguishability — of AI-generated voices, songs and podcasts. According to French streaming service Deezer, 97% of participants in a recent study could not tell the difference between AI and human-made songs; the platform also estimates that 50,000 full AI-generated songs are added to their service every day. Billboard also recently revealed that AI music company Suno is generating 7 million tracks a day.

…In terms of radio DJs, an AI radio personality called DJ Tori has taken over the undesirable overnight and weekend shifts at a hard-rock radio station in Hiawatha, Iowa, called KFMW Rock 108, according to a Rolling Stone report. Her voice and image — that of a fashionable tattooed rocker — are both AI-generated. Meanwhile, will.i.am launched RAiDiO.FYI, an interactive AI radio app featuring poetic voices that tell you about the songs that are playing. Spotify also continues to push its AI DJ feature, programmed based on the voice and persona of one of its employees.

In the world of podcasting, a company called Inception Point AI, founded by a former Wondery executive, has more than 5,000 podcasts and is generating 3,000 episodes a week at a cost of $1 or less per episode.

To underscore his point to iHeart employees, Poleman added some stats, including that “70% of consumers say they use AI as a tool, yet 90% want their media to be from real humans,” and that “92% say nothing can replace human connection — up from 76% in 2016.”

[From Billboard]

Thank you, iHeart! I mean, it’s totally bonkers and very Through The Looking Glass meets Twilight Zone to have need for a policy called “Guaranteed Human.” And I’m certainly guilty of not being prepared for this exponential, existential AI takeover. Silly me, I was convinced our destruction of the environment was the lone major crisis of our age! But I’ve been waiting for pushback like this from a key industry player ever since AI “artists” have been climbing Billboard charts — some of them even landing record deals. Spotify has been flagging AI-usage, but obviously not banning it, with this article reporting that they’ve spun a whole AI-DJ feature based on an employee. (What kind of cut did this person get for being the basis of Spotify’s FrankenDJ, I wonder?) I still think Billboard, such a central voice in the music biz, never should have allowed AI “artists” on their charts to begin with, and the fact that (as of this writing) they still haven’t banned it from the charts is an insult to all guaranteed human artists. Here’s hoping iHeartRadio’s bold move inspires other companies to join suit. As Tom Poleman said to close out his letter: “Sometimes you have to pick a side — we’re on the side of humans.”

Photos credit: Judy Eddy/Wenn/Avalon, Jordan Hinton/Image Press Agency/Avalon