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George Carlin estate sues over fake comedy special purportedly generated by AI (apnews.com)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/news

34 comments fedilink hide all child comments

The lawsuit filed in federal court in Los Angeles on Thursday asks that a judge order the podcast outlet, Dudesy, to immediately take down the audio special, “George Carlin: I’m Glad I’m Dead,” in which a synthesis of Carlin, who died in 2008, delivers commentary on current events.

Carlin’s daughter, Kelly Carlin, said in a statement that the work is “a poorly-executed facsimile cobbled together by unscrupulous individuals to capitalize on the extraordinary goodwill my father established with his adoring fanbase.”

The Carlin estate and its executor, Jerold Hamza, are named as plaintiffs in the suit, which alleges violations of Carlin’s right of publicity and copyright. The named defendants are Dudesy and podcast hosts Will Sasso and Chad Kultgen.

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[–] PP_BOY_ 49 points 5 months ago (2 children)

This is great. There was no reason for there to be any mention of George Carlin in the video's title, especially not crediting it to him and especially not with a title like that. I'm curious if the creator ever sat back and thought that what they were doing was wrong.

A real AI comedian trained by living comedians would be an interesting feat, but coming right out the gate with the first real example being such a blatant theft of likeness sours so much opinion people will have on the idea in the future.

[–] dhork 17 points 5 months ago

I agree with you, and think that people are overplaying the AI hype. People think that training an AI is like training a human, and that's not really true.

But even if it were, what this guy is doing with his AI goes beyond that. I think anyone would agree that there is nothing preventing a new comedian from binging on all the George Carlin material, then making their own show, under their own name . But if that human literally put on a George Carlin mask and billed their show as "George Carlin", his estate would (rightfully) get upset, even though everyone understands this can't be the real George Carlin. Why should this guy get a pass just because he had an AI do all the hard work of writing the jokes?

[–] [email protected] -5 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Did you try watching it? The first minute or so is nothing but disclaimers that this isn't "really" Carlin, and the AI itself makes numerous jokes about its AI nature throughout the special. There's no false credit going on here.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago (2 children)

If the creators didn't get permission to use Carlin's name and image, they deserve to be sued.

They could just as easily have generated an image to use if they didn't want to be taken to court. Instead they will have an expensive FAFO episode.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

They could just as easily have generated an image to use if they didn’t want to be taken to court.

I don't know what you mean by this.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

AI can be used to generate images of people. So they could have generated an image, put a fake name - or no name at all - on it, and gone ahead with the "comic relief".

Instead they co-opted Carlin's name and face.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Ah. You haven't actually watched the video in question, then. At no point did they ever use Carlin's face.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Nobody should watch it, because AI is bad. /s?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago

If you're going to complain about things that it did then it kind of behooves you to know whether it actually did them.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

If the creators didn’t get permission to use Carlin’s name and image, they deserve to be sued.

wrong. the man is dead. do you think i should be sued by the lincoln estate for wearing a tophat and counting my drinks by the score?

[–] [email protected] -3 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Maybe check on copyright and estate laws, so you can understand what's being discussed here.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

don't be condescending.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

i understand.

if the law supports it, the law is wrong.

[–] FlyingSquid 34 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Good. I don't care if it's really AI or not. It's fucking tasteless. Even if they lose this suit, I'm glad they did it just on principle.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 months ago (1 children)

If they lose the suit then that establishes precedence that this is legally fine.

[–] FlyingSquid 3 points 5 months ago

That has to be established one way or another.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

For what it's worth, this whole thing is almost definitely not generated by AI. See https://arstechnica.com/ai/2024/01/did-an-ai-write-that-hour-long-george-carlin-special-im-not-convinced/

They're comedians claiming it's generated by AI as a kind of commentary and schtick. The creators directly compared it to the similar schtick of pro wrestling at one point.

[–] yuriy 7 points 5 months ago

Hang on, I’ve just assumed this whole time that it was a Carlin impersonator who actually performed the whole special, and then just used AI for the face and voice. Did people actually think this was created by typing some variation of “gimme new george carlin” into GPT or some shit?

[–] bappity 16 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I gave that "special" a watch and it felt like an insult

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

It was more like a political rant with almost no comedy

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

There are those who would describe the actual Carlin's specials this way.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago

Whereas I watched it and I rather enjoyed it.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago

I know all the good domain names have been taken… but even when scraping the bottom of the barrel, they could have done better than “Dudesy”. What the fuck, people.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

I watched a few minutes of this. Awful. This guy should be sued for wasting everyone's time.