“Half the People on the Planet Will Be AI.”

With Bionic Man/Woman surgeries nowhere in sight, this does NOT sound good.

And, it’s not.

Under the headline “5,000 podcasts. 3,000 episodes a week. $1 cost per episode.”  We commence the unveiling of a dystopian future Rod Serling is pissed he didn’t write about.

Inception Point AI, a new startup is building a “stable of AI talent to host podcasts, and eventually become broader influencers across social media, literature and more.”

Most importantly, “they want to be able to OWN (emphasis added), scale and CONTROL (emphasis added) the talent (unlike those off-the-cuff humans) and produce shows at a minimal cost.”

Here’s what we know from this article so far -

Startup Driver: Corporate ownership of the means of production (maximized $’s and full control) and the significant reduction (elimination) of cost (i.e., humans).

Product: Zone flooding AI podcast content (most assuredly not slop)

The Future: I can assure you this is only the tip of the iceberg.  No life boats are coming to save us from these solutions in search of a problem.  Human creativity is to be offshored and automated . . . tout de suite!

Reflections & Further Questions

Humanity’s Patron Saint, Rod Serling

Rod Serling did actually write about this in the Twilight Zone’s Season 5, Episode 33, The Brain Center at Whipple’s.  He says this, “The point is that too often man becomes clever instead of becoming wise, he becomes inventive, but not thoughtful.  And sometimes, as in the case of Mr. Whipple, he can create himself right out of existence.”

Sailing the Seas of Noise

Playing in the music sphere - the sea of noise -  it is hard to imagine a world where we need MORE content.  What problem is this actually solving?  Irrespective of demand (‘cause there are already more than two chickens in every pot), we know costs must ALWAYS come down and the major cost driver . . . people.

A better accounting of the problem would be helpful for all of us.  I’m sure many folks would ‘lean in’ to prevent the nuclear option.  Just sayin’.

Humans . . . You Are The Weakest Link

Two points . . .

ONE. What role will humans have in this new venture (or in all of the ensuing ventures that will be launched under this call to action - better, faster, cheaper . . . humans optional)?  Precision is pretty important here because it is this question that determines our collective fate - bystander or architect.

TWO. Given podcasts are a creative endeavor built by and defined by humans, is there a point to any of this if humans aren’t driving the train?  Art is the thing, the meaning around the thing and the person(s) behind it.  Anything AI generated is, at best, the (AI) thing.

Inception Point has acknowledged that all three of these are needed to be compelling.  Here’s the plan as I understand it - the first stop is to create the thing; second, build human personalities around the thing to better allow your brain to reconcile the fact that a non-human is “entertaining” you; and finally, your brain is now primed to imprint AI generated content with meaning.  It’s that easy.

What happens when the veil is lifted and people know all of this?  Will they care? TBD.

To Serve Man

The copyright office has made it clear that its whole purpose is to protect HUMAN authorship (expression).  So, how much Human do we need to express ourselves?  It seems axiomatic that describing something/anything via a prompt and having AI take it from there is insufficient.  The US Copyright Office said the exact thing in it’s report on Copyright and Artificial Intelligence in January 2025.  Well, some seem to have not gotten the memo.  This is something we better figure out fast ‘cause this will define the required ratios of human to machine and outline just how many people will still be employed in the near future.

Who’s Gonna Be The Adult In The Room?

This question seems to be the question of our times.  Everyone is calling for one, but nobody wants to listen to anyone else - we’ve all got it figured out.  If we just had someone to implement our will.

Being an adult is hard - free will in an absurd world.  Then there’s all of those other ‘adults’ you have to live with on this planet.  But, there’s a general maxim - those that fly closest to the sun on any given topic need to invest in figuring things out.  Abdication of that responsibility shows that you aren’t serious.  You want the rewards but aren’t willing to do the hard work.

The debate around AI requires serious players. AI extracts (it scrapes all), AI replaces (human replacements at the ready), AI floods the zone (infinite content on demand), AI destroys (the value of authorship trends toward zero) . . . instantly.

The irony?  It does this leveraging a database of everything ever created by man over our whole human history.

"Building A Better Tomorrow . . . Today!”

Coda: Stay Classy San Diego

This is the conversation of our times.  It is insanely important and it goes to the core of what it means to be human.  We need our best thoughts and expression brought to the fore - there are no shortcuts.  This goes both to expression and actions.

Our basest urges will not serve us well as we make the point that AI replacement of human creativity is not only a bad idea but it misses the point completely.

So stay classy San Diego - we need the best of all of you in the game to figure this sh!t out.