Pundit ClaimsAI claims by Gary Marcus and Ed Zitron, with the evidence

Ed Zitron Where's Your Ed At Published

Empty Laughter

We recorded 9 claims from this post. 1 was checked against evidence. 8 can’t be checked. 5 more are held. Read the post at its source.

Claims from this post (9)

In the order they appear in the post. Each quotation is the speaker’s words in this post. A label such as “Supported” or “Can’t be checked” is the claim’s current assessment; its page has the evidence and the reasons.

  1. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “Dudesy’s “state of the art entertainment AI” is far more likely someone typing stuff into a chatbot and “surprising” two comedians with things like “getting a colonoscopy” and “a fake autobiography of Tom Hanks where he says curses.””

    What we tested: Dudesy's claimed 'state of the art entertainment AI' is more likely just someone typing prompts into a chatbot.

  2. Assessment: UnresolvedSaid

    “The podcast has also struggled to retain its initial momentum, with viewership tumbling from 160,000 views on the first episode to around 40,000 an episode for the last 9 months, with the exception of the George Carlin special which sits at 55,000 views at the time of writing.”

    What we tested: The AI-themed Dudesy podcast's viewership fell from 160,000 views on its first episode to around 40,000 per episode over the last nine months, with the Carlin special at 55,000.

  3. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “While I agree with Sasso that George Carlin would indeed have been a voice we could use in 2024 if he were not dead, I do not believe that any “need” for a particular artist’s voice justifies creating an abominable digital clone with someone else’s words in its mouth.”

    What we tested: Zitron does not believe that any 'need' for a particular artist's voice justifies creating an abominable digital clone with someone else's words in its mouth.

  4. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “The voice of Dudesy may indeed be AI-generated, but I would wager a human being is either writing or heavily editing a script.”

    What we tested: Although Dudesy's voice may be AI-generated, a human is probably writing or heavily editing its scripts.

  5. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “What I think is far more likely is that “Dudesy” is a collaboration between Sasso, Kultgen, and an unnamed artificial intelligence company, and the result is equal parts despicable and ridiculous.”

    What we tested: Zitron thinks it is far more likely, compared with the alternatives he lists, that Dudesy is a collaboration between Sasso, Kultgen and an unnamed AI company, and that the result is equal parts despicable and ridiculous.

  6. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “This is entirely my intuition, but AI-Carlin’s jokes feel like they were generated by feeding transcripts of his real work into a generative AI, with the resulting CarlinGPT bot prompted by Sasso and Kultgen and its outputs heavily edited.”

    What we tested: By his intuition, the AI Carlin jokes were likely made by feeding Carlin transcripts into a generative AI, prompted by the hosts and heavily edited.

  7. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “You cannot create a new George Carlin, as he was created not only by the precise history and events that he participated in, but the relationships he had with other humans in parity with his own thoughts and emotions. These are not things that are simulated or simulatable.”

    What we tested: You cannot create a new George Carlin, because he was shaped by the precise history and events he took part in and his relationships with other people alongside his own thoughts and emotions, and these cannot be simulated.

  8. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “And I believe there are an alarming amount of people with so little soul, so little being, and so little personality behind their work that chatGPT does seem magical because — just like them — it doesn't have any of its own ideas.”

    What we tested: Zitron believes an alarming number of people have so little soul, being and personality behind their work that ChatGPT seems magical to them, because, like them, it has no ideas of its own.

  9. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    “An AI cannot experience time, frustration, jealousy, yearning, sickness, fatigue or any of the emotions that play into or impede creativity.”

    What we tested: An AI cannot experience time, frustration, jealousy, yearning, sickness, fatigue or any of the emotions that play into or impede creativity.

Held from this post (5)

These records did not pass every check, so nothing about them is published. Held is not a finding.