4 ms·

Guys, this is not replacing your favorite station, you don't have to listen to it. It's an experiment. If you scroll down a bit, there are various audio snippe

Guys, this is not replacing your favorite station, you don't have to listen to it. It's an experiment. If you scroll down a bit, there are various audio snippets of interesting dialogue the models produced. I think it's interesting to see in which ways the models fail and that they actually produce some good stuff once in a while.

48terry 5mo ago
Experiment: "We got AI to do things and it did weird stuff sometimes". Brilliant! Amazing! I'm glad ~4 years down the line we're still re-discovering Ha Ha Funny Output.
- JumpCrisscross 5mo ago
  > I'm glad ~4 years down the line we're still re-discovering Ha Ha Funny Output Four years or forty millennia? So a certain extent, all whimsical art is “haha funny” result.
- paulhebert 5mo ago
  Yea what are they trying to test? Where is the hypothesis?
  - crooked-v 5mo ago
    They're trying to test if it's good enough to replaced the few remaining paid radio/streaming DJs yet.
  - lukaspetersson 5mo ago
    We're generally trying to test if/when AIs can run companies. Not many people know this, but Vending-Bench (our other project where AIs run vending machines) is intended as a datapoint for measuring whether AIs can acquire resources by themselves, which is a prerequisite to AIs taking over. This is similar, but now instead of a retail business, it's a media business.
- AirMax98 5mo ago
  At this point I think many of us are similarly exhausted by this sort of trite exercise. I really don't need some VC backed startup to show me this sort of output any more, especially when the output in question is obviously boring and substandard.
- runarberg 5mo ago
  I am reminded of how not even 2 weeks ago we had an “experiment” of rewriting Bun in Rust.
samtp 5mo ago
The only way that anyone be worried about this slop replacing actual good human run radio is if they don't understand why people like radio & music in the first place. And what hypothesis exactly is the experiment testing? Because it doesn't really seem like there is any new or interesting information learned from this.
- lacewing 5mo ago
  I think you're talking about some Platonic ideal that just doesn't exist anymore. Streaming services such as Spotify are increasingly filled with AI-generated songs and the average consumer doesn't seem to mind because we're not listening intently in the first place: it's just a background track we're not really paying attention to. I'm pretty sure that radio execs are looking at that and are taking notes. For talk radio... if I had a penny every time someone on HN brought up that they're enjoying NotebookLM-generated slopcasts, I'd have a neat pile of coin. And I think it's the same story: most people listen to podcasts just to kill time. Soothing, zero-calorie LLM banter will do.
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
  - samtp 5mo ago
    there's a whole world of wonderful radio that has been thriving for decades, completely different than Spotify or talk radio. It's unfortunate that you haven't seemed to experience any of it, but I've personally loved over the years stations like KEXP, WPFW, Dublab, WUSC
    - SquirrelOnFire 5mo ago
      KEXP is a local (and beloved) station for me. WIll have to give some of these others a listen if they're doing similar things.
    - lacewing 5mo ago
      Your original post said that we shouldn't be worried because people appreciate radio and music for reasons that presumably can't be replicated by AI. I'm asserting that's not true: it's not how most people listen to radio or music, and AI content is already quite prominent. I'm perfectly familiar with KEXP and other stations like that, but this is not how most people experience the medium. It's like insisting that Taylor Swift will never catch on because her music is not nearly as rich and complex as Wagner. Sure, but that's completely irrelevant.
analogpixel 5mo ago
How is this any worse than I Heart Radio? You can have your radio experience pushed to you by a major corporation, or an LLM.
- Forgeties79 5mo ago
  iHeartRadio is not doing anything. A person at iHeartRadio is doing the work. Even if it’s automated, at some point a person handled it.
  - analogpixel 5mo ago
    A person at IHeartRadio is doing the work the corporation tells them to do. do you think they want to play Hotel California on loop all day long?
    - Forgeties79 5mo ago
      It is not the same as an LLM and I don’t understand why you’re trying to equate it.
      - adampunk 5mo ago
        Because the argument "at least it's a human over at iHeartRadio" is not convincing in the slightest?
        Forgeties79 5mo ago
        Why? LLM = literally not a person. Person at a company = literally a person. I do not understand your logic here. Let’s use a more extreme example: * if I am flying a military drone and bomb someone I was told to bomb, am I morally culpable for pulling the trigger? * if a company launches a military drone that is completely controlled by an LLM, is there an individual person culpable for dropping the bomb?
    - shagie 5mo ago
gwbas1c 5mo ago
> this is not replacing your favorite station My favorite radio station was replaced years ago by an automated playlist. They just kept playing the same 5-6 songs that were popular on the station in the 1990s. It was fun for about 2 hours before I realized the station was devoid of all the personality that made it worth listening to when I was younger.
- WalterBright 5mo ago
  The playlists of nearly all radio stations are far too short for me. I finally just quit listening to the radio. Comcast has a bunch of channels with various music categories. They all repeat after about 2 days. So much for that. With all the zillions of songs available, I don't get why they do that.
  - tzs 5mo ago
    Have you tried KING 98.1? They seem to have a vast playlist.
  - SquirrelOnFire 5mo ago
    You've got to find the rare radio stations with public support and human djs. kexp.org is a great one based out of Seattle with a wild variety of shows and decades of history. Are all the shows to my taste? No. Have I ever heard something being played that was total crap? Honestly, maybe? Because there's genres I don't know enough to gaugue quality, but I haven't twigged to it.
    - runarberg 5mo ago
      The dial on my receiver is permanently on 90.3 FM. Such a good radio station. I remember one fun drive a couple of years back was themed around “Don‘t let the robots win”[1]. Perhaps it is already time to re-use that theme. 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/KEXP/comments/1459ahb/dont_let_the_robots_win_kexps_one_day_summer_drive/ https://www.reddit.com/r/KEXP/comments/1459ahb/dont_let_the_...
  - BLKNSLVR 5mo ago
probably_wrong 5mo ago
From the article "Knitting bullshit" discussed in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48032461 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48032461 : > Inception Point AI, on the other hand, is a slop factory employing just 8 people which, according to Anne, publishes "about 3000 podcast episodes per week, hosted by AI personalities." Anne tells Jamie, that, to date, Inception Point AI’s podcasts have accumulated "12 million lifetime downloads. And we’re averaging about 750,000 downloads a month." (...) no one checks or edits the podcast content– but, Anne tells Jamie blithely, this really doesn’t matter because the topics under discussion are so low stakes. Perhaps this specific iteration of this specific idea is not replacing my favorite station, but people with a very similar concept are definitely trying to do exactly that.
lenerdenator 5mo ago
> Guys, this is not replacing your favorite station, you don't have to listen to it. It's an experiment. And yet, if it's cheaper than employing people, it very much is replacing your favorite station, because that's how major media conglomerates manage their stations.
0xdeadbeefbabe 5mo ago
> I think it's interesting to see in which ways the models fail and that they actually produce some good stuff once in a while. This is a good summary of GPTs.

48terry 5mo ago

Experiment: "We got AI to do things and it did weird stuff sometimes". Brilliant! Amazing! I'm glad ~4 years down the line we're still re-discovering Ha Ha Funny Output.

JumpCrisscross 5mo ago
> I'm glad ~4 years down the line we're still re-discovering Ha Ha Funny Output Four years or forty millennia? So a certain extent, all whimsical art is “haha funny” result.
paulhebert 5mo ago
Yea what are they trying to test? Where is the hypothesis?
- crooked-v 5mo ago
  They're trying to test if it's good enough to replaced the few remaining paid radio/streaming DJs yet.
- lukaspetersson 5mo ago
  We're generally trying to test if/when AIs can run companies. Not many people know this, but Vending-Bench (our other project where AIs run vending machines) is intended as a datapoint for measuring whether AIs can acquire resources by themselves, which is a prerequisite to AIs taking over. This is similar, but now instead of a retail business, it's a media business.
AirMax98 5mo ago
At this point I think many of us are similarly exhausted by this sort of trite exercise. I really don't need some VC backed startup to show me this sort of output any more, especially when the output in question is obviously boring and substandard.
runarberg 5mo ago
I am reminded of how not even 2 weeks ago we had an “experiment” of rewriting Bun in Rust.

samtp 5mo ago

The only way that anyone be worried about this slop replacing actual good human run radio is if they don't understand why people like radio & music in the first place. And what hypothesis exactly is the experiment testing? Because it doesn't really seem like there is any new or interesting information learned from this.

lacewing 5mo ago
I think you're talking about some Platonic ideal that just doesn't exist anymore. Streaming services such as Spotify are increasingly filled with AI-generated songs and the average consumer doesn't seem to mind because we're not listening intently in the first place: it's just a background track we're not really paying attention to. I'm pretty sure that radio execs are looking at that and are taking notes. For talk radio... if I had a penny every time someone on HN brought up that they're enjoying NotebookLM-generated slopcasts, I'd have a neat pile of coin. And I think it's the same story: most people listen to podcasts just to kill time. Soothing, zero-calorie LLM banter will do.
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
- samtp 5mo ago
  there's a whole world of wonderful radio that has been thriving for decades, completely different than Spotify or talk radio. It's unfortunate that you haven't seemed to experience any of it, but I've personally loved over the years stations like KEXP, WPFW, Dublab, WUSC
  - SquirrelOnFire 5mo ago
    KEXP is a local (and beloved) station for me. WIll have to give some of these others a listen if they're doing similar things.
  - lacewing 5mo ago
    Your original post said that we shouldn't be worried because people appreciate radio and music for reasons that presumably can't be replicated by AI. I'm asserting that's not true: it's not how most people listen to radio or music, and AI content is already quite prominent. I'm perfectly familiar with KEXP and other stations like that, but this is not how most people experience the medium. It's like insisting that Taylor Swift will never catch on because her music is not nearly as rich and complex as Wagner. Sure, but that's completely irrelevant.

analogpixel 5mo ago

How is this any worse than I Heart Radio? You can have your radio experience pushed to you by a major corporation, or an LLM.

Forgeties79 5mo ago
iHeartRadio is not doing anything. A person at iHeartRadio is doing the work. Even if it’s automated, at some point a person handled it.
- analogpixel 5mo ago
  A person at IHeartRadio is doing the work the corporation tells them to do. do you think they want to play Hotel California on loop all day long?
  - Forgeties79 5mo ago
    It is not the same as an LLM and I don’t understand why you’re trying to equate it.
    - adampunk 5mo ago
      Because the argument "at least it's a human over at iHeartRadio" is not convincing in the slightest?
      - Forgeties79 5mo ago
        Why? LLM = literally not a person. Person at a company = literally a person. I do not understand your logic here. Let’s use a more extreme example: * if I am flying a military drone and bomb someone I was told to bomb, am I morally culpable for pulling the trigger? * if a company launches a military drone that is completely controlled by an LLM, is there an individual person culpable for dropping the bomb?
  - shagie 5mo ago

gwbas1c 5mo ago

> this is not replacing your favorite station My favorite radio station was replaced years ago by an automated playlist. They just kept playing the same 5-6 songs that were popular on the station in the 1990s. It was fun for about 2 hours before I realized the station was devoid of all the personality that made it worth listening to when I was younger.

WalterBright 5mo ago
The playlists of nearly all radio stations are far too short for me. I finally just quit listening to the radio. Comcast has a bunch of channels with various music categories. They all repeat after about 2 days. So much for that. With all the zillions of songs available, I don't get why they do that.
- tzs 5mo ago
  Have you tried KING 98.1? They seem to have a vast playlist.
- SquirrelOnFire 5mo ago
  You've got to find the rare radio stations with public support and human djs. kexp.org is a great one based out of Seattle with a wild variety of shows and decades of history. Are all the shows to my taste? No. Have I ever heard something being played that was total crap? Honestly, maybe? Because there's genres I don't know enough to gaugue quality, but I haven't twigged to it.
  - runarberg 5mo ago
    The dial on my receiver is permanently on 90.3 FM. Such a good radio station. I remember one fun drive a couple of years back was themed around “Don‘t let the robots win”[1]. Perhaps it is already time to re-use that theme. 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/KEXP/comments/1459ahb/dont_let_the_robots_win_kexps_one_day_summer_drive/ https://www.reddit.com/r/KEXP/comments/1459ahb/dont_let_the_...
- BLKNSLVR 5mo ago

probably_wrong 5mo ago

From the article "Knitting bullshit" discussed in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48032461 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48032461 : > Inception Point AI, on the other hand, is a slop factory employing just 8 people which, according to Anne, publishes "about 3000 podcast episodes per week, hosted by AI personalities." Anne tells Jamie, that, to date, Inception Point AI’s podcasts have accumulated "12 million lifetime downloads. And we’re averaging about 750,000 downloads a month." (...) no one checks or edits the podcast content– but, Anne tells Jamie blithely, this really doesn’t matter because the topics under discussion are so low stakes. Perhaps this specific iteration of this specific idea is not replacing my favorite station, but people with a very similar concept are definitely trying to do exactly that.

lenerdenator 5mo ago

> Guys, this is not replacing your favorite station, you don't have to listen to it. It's an experiment. And yet, if it's cheaper than employing people, it very much is replacing your favorite station, because that's how major media conglomerates manage their stations.

0xdeadbeefbabe 5mo ago

> I think it's interesting to see in which ways the models fail and that they actually produce some good stuff once in a while. This is a good summary of GPTs.