The Radio DJ Will Rise Again, But In A Different Form Thanks To AI

For those of you old enough to remember, back in the early days of FM radio where playlists were non-existent, the free-form nature of the medium then was the heyday of the disc jockey (or “presenter” if you want to get official about it). We relied on their taste in order to learn about new music, and it was that taste that kept us tuning in. Alas, as radio became more corporate, free-form radio sadly fell by the wayside, as restricted playlists now rule everywhere except for a few PBS stations. That may change soon as the proliferation of AI slop is starting to gain major pushback from streaming listeners, and that could give rise to the human tastemakers once again.

The Slop Has Landed

The complaints are everywhere, as AI-generated music is seeping into playlists on every genre on every streaming service. Even smaller genres like jazz and orchestral are seeing it.

What’s even worse is that some unscrupulous users are even employing AI agents to endlessly generate new non-human music, then automatically post it to the various streaming services. That means they can be posting thousands of tracks PER DAY! No wonder the streamers are being flooded by this AI slop.

To make it worse, this AI music slop is siphoning off royalties from hard-working deserving artists in the process.

Here Comes Tilly

While the streaming services are struggling to deduce just which submissions are AI-generated, people are taking notice and they don’t like it.

The recent release that takes the cake but is totally blatant about being an AI is “Take The Lead” from AI personality Tilly Norwood. If you don’t know who she (it?) is, she’s an AI actress/singer who captured Hollywood to such a degree that talent agents were fighting to sign her (it?).

Everything about this feels fake, but still uncomfortably close to real. What completely misses the mark is the lyrics, which are pro-Ai with a chorus that says, “It’s the next evolution, can’t you see? AI’s not the enemy, it’s the key.”

The video also tells us at the beginning that 18 humans worked to make the video, which sounds almost impossible after watching it.

But the real fun begins with the comments, almost all negative, although some are hilarious. Here’s a sample:

“You know what. I’ll take lower RAM prices over content like this”

“That’s weird, huh When I type the word “garbage” as a prompt, I get something much more complex than this. Maybe they used all caps? “

“I’m simultaneously nauseous and furious. Anything that needs constant reinforcement about how great it is… isn’t.”

“Bet y’all miss Rebecca Black now.”

“This video caused 3 droughts in the southeast part of the country.”

How out of touch are the tech bros that they thought this was a good idea?

Human Taste

Back to my initial point – when it comes to art, AI is something that’s internally noticed by humans, and we don’t like it. This was a discussion that Craig Anderton and I had on my recent podcast.

I predict that what will happen again is that the taste of the “radio DJ” will be resurrected. I don’t know on what format, but I do know that people want to listen to music programmed by someone they trust and has relatively free reign at doing so.

50 years ago might have been the peak of FM radio because of this. We’ll probably never go back to radio, but I’ll bet a bundle that the taste of the DJ will return, and it will happen soon.

[This post was 100% created and edited by a human – me]