{"id":17235,"date":"2025-01-13T05:38:22","date_gmt":"2025-01-13T04:38:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/13\/a-lump-of-metal-fascinating-i-get-interviewed-by-the-ai-michael-parkinson\/"},"modified":"2025-01-13T05:38:22","modified_gmt":"2025-01-13T04:38:22","slug":"a-lump-of-metal-fascinating-i-get-interviewed-by-the-ai-michael-parkinson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/13\/a-lump-of-metal-fascinating-i-get-interviewed-by-the-ai-michael-parkinson\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018A lump of metal? Fascinating\u2019: I get interviewed by the AI Michael Parkinson"},"content":{"rendered":"

Can the AI Parky ever beat the real chatshow colossus? As the Virtually Parkinson podcast launches, our writer sits in on a bizarre interview with Monty Don \u2013 then ends up in the hot seat himself<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Ask anyone who regularly interviews people and they\u2019ll tell you that few things are stranger than when the tables turn and you\u2019re the one being interviewed. This is especially true when the person interviewing you has been dead for a year and a half. But here we are. Virtually Parkinson is a new podcast in which celebrities are interviewed by an AI model trained to speak and act like the late Michael Parkinson. The announcement of the podcast last year<\/a> prompted a flurry of vaguely apocalyptic reactions. It was sacrilegious, some said, tantamount to digging up and reanimating a national treasure against his will. It was pointless, others said \u2013 of all the transformative ways to use AI, you\u2019re blowing it on a podcast<\/em>? Then there were folks like me, quietly nervous that Robot Parky was coming for our jobs.<\/p>\n

On that last grumble, at least, I don\u2019t need to worry yet. Primarily, this is because running Virtually Parkinson is a gargantuan operation. A normal interview traditionally only needs two participants. This, however, requires a small army. There\u2019s the subject and interviewer, plus an engineer, a researcher and a clutch of producers holed up in a control room whose roles include making sure the AI sounds like Parkinson, that it asks the sort of questions he would ask, has an encyclopaedic knowledge of both the subject and Parkinson, doesn\u2019t glitch, doesn\u2019t repeat itself, doesn\u2019t interrupt anyone in the middle of an answer and \u2013 most importantly \u2013 doesn\u2019t overuse the word \u201cfascinating\u201d.<\/p>\n

Continue reading…<\/a>
\nCan the AI Parky ever beat the real chatshow colossus? As the Virtually Parkinson podcast launches, our writer sits in on a bizarre interview with Monty Don \u2013 then ends up in the hot seat himself<\/p>\n

Ask anyone who regularly interviews people and they\u2019ll tell you that few things are stranger than when the tables turn and you\u2019re the one being interviewed. This is especially true when the person interviewing you has been dead for a year and a half. But here we are. Virtually Parkinson is a new podcast in which celebrities are interviewed by an AI model trained to speak and act like the late Michael Parkinson. The announcement of the podcast last year prompted a flurry of vaguely apocalyptic reactions. It was sacrilegious, some said, tantamount to digging up and reanimating a national treasure against his will. It was pointless, others said \u2013 of all the transformative ways to use AI, you\u2019re blowing it on a podcast? Then there were folks like me, quietly nervous that Robot Parky was coming for our jobs.
\nOn that last grumble, at least, I don\u2019t need to worry yet. Primarily, this is because running Virtually Parkinson is a gargantuan operation. A normal interview traditionally only needs two participants. This, however, requires a small army. There\u2019s the subject and interviewer, plus an engineer, a researcher and a clutch of producers holed up in a control room whose roles include making sure the AI sounds like Parkinson, that it asks the sort of questions he would ask, has an encyclopaedic knowledge of both the subject and Parkinson, doesn\u2019t glitch, doesn\u2019t repeat itself, doesn\u2019t interrupt anyone in the middle of an answer and \u2013 most importantly \u2013 doesn\u2019t overuse the word \u201cfascinating\u201d. Continue reading…Technology | The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Can the AI Parky ever beat the real chatshow colossus? As the Virtually Parkinson podcast launches, our writer sits in on a bizarre interview with Monty Don \u2013 then ends up in the hot seat himself Ask anyone who regularly interviews people and they\u2019ll tell you that few things are stranger than when the tables …<\/p>\n

\u2018A lump of metal? Fascinating\u2019: I get interviewed by the AI Michael Parkinson<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":17236,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17235"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17235\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}