YouTube’s AI bots are now coming for my job.

I’ve been doing The Ongoing History of New Music since January 1993. More than 1050 shows have been researched, written, produced, and broadcasted. More than 500 of those shows have been turned into podcasts with more coming online every week. The amount of work that goes into each and every show is exhaustive, and I pride myself on finding out stuff that you won’t learn anywhere else.

This has become my career, something that I love, something that I’m known for, and something that pays the mortgage. And as a storyteller who tries to deliver everything with real passion and excitement, I’ve always believed that mine is a job that will never be replaced by robots.

Well, maybe not.

YouTube is currently testing AI music hosts that will offer up stories, trivia, and commentary about music. This announcement was made on Friday (September 26):

“Today, we’re introducing YouTube Labs — a new way for users to take our cutting edge AI experiments for a test drive.

“YouTube Labs is a new initiative dedicated to exploring the potential of AI on YouTube. The first experiment, AI music hosts designed to deepen your listening experience by sharing relevant stories, fan trivia, and fun commentary about your favorite music on the YouTube Music app, is now live. A limited number of US-based participants can test early prototypes and experiments and influence the future of YouTube.”

Great. Just. F**king. Great. AI should be used for doing the shit humans hate doing. Laundry. Picking up after the dog. Cleaning the house. AI should lead to world where humans are more free to be creative and artistic.

A question to YouTube: What are you training your models on? It had better not be my stuff.

(Via Pete)