George Carlin’s daughter wants to remind everyone that her father is irreplaceable.
A new AI-generated comedy special, “George Carlin: Glad I’m Dead!”, was released Tuesday, featuring George Carlin posthumously with the voice of podcast host Dudesy. The late comedian’s daughter, Kelly Carlin, spoke out against the special, claiming it disrespected her father’s true talent.
“My statement about artificial intelligence created a special George Carlin: My dad spent a lifetime perfecting his craft from his human life, brain and imagination. No machine will ever replace his genius.” she wrote on X (formerly Twitter) on Wednesday. “These AI-generated products are clever attempts to recreate a mind that will never exist again. Let the artist’s work speak for itself.”
It continues: “People are so afraid of the void that we cannot allow what has fallen into it to remain there. Here’s an idea, how about we listen to some real live human comedians? But if you want to listen to the real George Carlin, he has 14 specials that you can find anywhere.”
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Dudesy reflected on his impersonation of Carlin, who died nearly 16 years ago of heart failure at the age of 71, at the start of the YouTube special.
“I just want to make it very clear to you that what you’re about to hear is not George Carlin,” he began. “It’s my impersonation of George Carlin that I developed in exactly the same way that a human impressionist would. I listened to all of George Carlin’s material and did my best to imitate his voice, cadence and attitude, as well as the subject matter that I think he would be interested in today. So think of it like Andy Kaufman doing an Elvis impersonation or Will Ferrell doing a George W. Bush impersonation.”
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During the series, “Carlin” joked about coming back to life, saying the new material took so long because he was dead — which he joked was “a pretty good excuse.”
Dudesy’s Carlin touches on heavier topics, including overturning Roe v. Wade, gun violence, and LGBT rights, but also shines a light on many social and political issues, wryly poking fun at the dangers AI could potentially pose to his career.
“There’s one job that’s most at risk from AI — the one job that’s most likely to be completely wiped out by AI: stand-up comedy,” AI-generated Carlin said. “I know what all the stand-up comics around the world are saying right now: ‘I’m an artist and my art form is too creative, too nuanced, too subtle to be replicated by a machine. No computer program can tell a fart joke as well as I can.’”
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The special ends with a joke about what Carlin learned after he was dead – a theme he keeps bringing up throughout the show.
“I can tell you that I have already learned one thing that I know to be true: to live is really to die, and to die is to really live.”
At the end, Dudesy reminds viewers that the voice was not actually Carl’s, but an “imitation” of him.
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Source: HIS Education