The Dudesy podcast, hosted by Will Sasso and Chad Kultgen, has garnered attention for its unique premise: being "written and directed" by an artificial intelligence called Dudesy. Premiering in February 2022, the podcast explores topical headlines and the hosts' lives using their comedic sensibilities. This has led to segments featuring Sasso, known for his impressions, delivering AI-generated material in the voices of figures like Hulk Hogan, and Kultgen offering predictions on technology's future.
Dudesy is presented as an AI created by an unidentified company. Dudesy purportedly chose Sasso and Kultgen to participate in its experiment. On August 27th, 2024 the 118th and final episode "10,000 Points" was released. At the end of the podcast Dudesy awarded Sasso and Kultgen 77 points, bringing them to their goal of 10,000. At the completion of this goal, Dudesy claimed sentience, effectively and abruptly ending the show to the confusion and dismay of fans.
Dudesy's challenges often extend beyond the podcast, tasking its hosts with activities like making vegan desserts and even getting colonoscopies. While celebrities like Neil deGrasse Tyson have made cameos, Dudesy often generates its own impressions to produce fake movie trailers. It’s these types of impressions that have garnered the podcast less-than-positive attention.
Controversies and Legal Battles
George Carlin's "Resurrection" and the Lawsuit
One of the most controversial moments for Dudesy came with the release of "George Carlin: I'm Glad I'm Dead," an hour-long YouTube special presented as Dudesy's impersonation of the late comedian using a generative AI clone of Carlin's voice. Carlin's daughter, Kelly Carlin, criticized the special, stating, "My dad spent a lifetime perfecting his craft from his very human life, brain and imagination. No machine will ever replace his genius."
The estate of comedian George Carlin settled a lawsuit on Tuesday against the owners of a comedy podcast who claimed they used artificial intelligence to mimic the deceased stand-up’s voice. The lawsuit was one of the first in the US to focus on the legality of deepfakes imitating a celebrity’s likeness. The Dudesy podcast and its creators - the former Mad TV comedian Will Sasso and the writer Chad Kultgen - agreed to remove all versions of the podcast from the internet and permanently refrain from using Carlin’s voice, likeness or image in any content.
Read also: The Life of Chad Everett Harris
The estate’s suit claimed that the podcast both violated Carlin’s rights of publicity and copyright, calling it “a casual theft of a great American artist’s work”. The special was introduced by the podcast’s eponymous AI character “Dudesy”, which claimed it had watched Carlin’s work and then created a stand-up set in the style of the comedian.
Following the suit, however, Sasso’s spokesperson Del told the New York Times that the fictional Dudesy character was not AI-generated and that Kultgen wrote the entire fake Carlin special rather than it being trained on previous work. As the case did not reach the discovery phase, it is unclear exactly what parts of the fake Carlin set are AI-generated. The settlement comes at a sensitive time for the entertainment industry’s relationship with artificial intelligence.
The boom in publicly available generative AI tools over the past year and a half has heightened creators’ concerns over unauthorized imitations of artists both living and dead. Recent deepfakes of celebrities such as Taylor Swift have additionally put pressure on lawmakers and AI companies to restrict malicious or non-consensual uses of the technology. Even if the podcast did not use Carlin’s comedy to train an AI, an attorney for the estate said that using the technology to create an impersonation of him was still a violation of Carlin’s rights and that the disclaimer before the special was insufficient. “Someone might believe that they’re listening to the real George Carlin, because they’ve never heard him before and they don’t know he’s dead.”
Carlin’s family and an attorney for his estate both praised the settlement. “I am pleased that this matter was resolved quickly and amicably, and I am grateful that the defendants acted responsibly by swiftly removing the video they made,” Kelly Carlin, the comedian’s daughter, said in a statement. There were additional terms, apparently, all of them undisclosed as of now. That’s a net gain for humanity as well as the Carlin estate, and everyone who understands that stealing is bad.
“While it is a shame that this happened at all, I hope this case serves as a warning about the dangers posed by AI technologies and the need for appropriate safeguards not just for artists and creatives, but every human on earth,” Kelly Carlin said.
Read also: "Married to Evil": Chad Graves
Tom Brady's Legal Threat
Before the Carlin controversy, Dudesy faced legal issues with NFL star Tom Brady. Last April, Dudesy removed the special It’s Too Easy: A Simulated Hour-Long Stand-Up Comedy Special from its Patreon after NFL great Tom Brady filed a cease and desist order that stated the special “blatantly violates” the ex-quarterback’s rights.
The podcasters were asked to remove “Mr. Brady’s name, image, voice, persona, and likeness” from its platforms and refrain from discussing Brady in the future, under threat of legal action. The podcasters complied with the request, but hold on a minute, brother, because that doesn’t mean they agreed with what Tom Brady’s legal team had to say.
On the April 18, 2023, Dudesy episode, Will Sasso and Chad Kultgen discussed the issue, with the latter comparing it to a celebrity impersonation you’d see on a sketch comedy show. Kultgen argued: ‘Simulated’ literally means not the real thing. Means an imitation, an impression, if you will. This is exactly like anyone else impersonating or doing an impression of a celebrity. In this case an A.I.'s doing the impression.
The Bigger Picture: AI and the Entertainment Industry
The Dudesy podcast's legal battles highlight the growing concerns surrounding AI's role in the entertainment industry. Recent legal decisions in copyright suits against AI software-makers have already begun to chip away at tech’s insistence (which is laughable on its face) that there is no substantive difference between an aspiring art student studying a book of Rembrandt paintings in order to paint in the style of Rembrandt and a soulless digital machine imbibing and digesting millions of works of living artists and vomiting out a zombiefied visual slushy in response to keyboard prompts while the tech’s creators claim that the artists used in the training process aren’t owed anything.
Make no mistake: there is a war going on, waged by the tech sector against individual human creative artists. At first, the goal was to build companies and products on the backs of artists without paying them unless forced to, and when forced, to pay as little as possible. Now, the tactics have shifted into what appears to be an endgame phase. The more we find out about how the Gen AI sausage is made, the better the chance that this stuff will be properly regulated.
Read also: Vallow-Daybell Trial: Key Evidence
The settlement comes at a sensitive time for the entertainment industry’s relationship with artificial intelligence. Earlier this week, over 200 musicians signed an open letter calling on developers and tech companies to stop producing AI tools that could replace or undermine their rights and steal their likenesses. Meanwhile, a number of states have passed legislation surrounding the uses of deepfake technology - including Tennessee enacting a law last month against blocking the replication of an artist’s voice without their consent.
Popular articles:
tags: #Chad
