Joe Rogan absolutely loves AI-generated music.
For the past few months, the podcaster has been drooling like a pig at its slop trough over AI-generated covers of the rapper 50 Cent, finding literally any excuse to play them for his guests, including such luminaries as Carrot Top and Andrew Schulz. It’s gotten so out of his hand that his some of his fans have started fuming about how he keeps bring the AI covers up.
“You gotta hear this,” Rogan said on one occasion. “It’s f*cking good dude,” he said on another. It’s the kind of enthusiastic endorsement you might hear from a friend who’s showing you a “super underrated” band that “nobody knows about” yet, but Rogan is giving it for AI slop.
Most of the time, the guests nod along or even share some of Rogan’s enthusiasm, but not all of them.
When Rogan tried to broach AI music with actress Katee Sackhoff during an interview in October, he got a little pushback — and his reaction during the exchange, which recently made rounds online, was telling.
First, Rogan half jokingly suggested that AI could make better music than humans, and Sackhoff wasn’t having any of it.
“Stop it. It will never be better if AI makes the music,” the “Battlestar Galactica” and “Longmire” actress said. “You just broke my soul.”
“AI is making some really good music,” Rogan wheedled.
Sackhoff grinned. “It’s also making some great podcasts,” she countered.
Rogan’s rambling stopped dead in its tracks.
“I —” he stuttered. “I don’t know about that,” he said, suddenly sounding very skeptical of AI tech, before abruptly changing the topic.
Such is the hypocrisy of your average AI bro. It’s all fun and games watching the tech plunder the arts and put people out of jobs — until it threatens to replace you, apparently.
Rogan was not to be deterred, however. He later had Sackhoff to listen to one of his favorite songs: an AI’s take on what a “soul cover” of 50 Cent’s track “What Up Gangsta” would sound like. According to Rogan, the AI version turned out “better than the original.”
Sackhoff, although impressed by the tech, wasn’t so sure. “I would so much rather see that in person,” she said, adding that the AI cover “robbed” the rapper of the opportunity to make a track in a similar style.
“I know what you’re saying, but this is my point. My point is that it tricks me and I know the trick,” Rogan replied. “I know it’s a trick, and I don’t care.”
Rogan, in sum, is admitting to being self-aware enough to know that he’s getting served soulless slop, but doesn’t have standards high enough to preclude him from enjoying it anyway.
This wasn’t the only time a guest roasted him for his hard-on for AI parody tunes. He also brought up the “What Up Gangsta” cover with former professor of evolutionary biology turned podcaster Bret Weinstein in an episode last month, but didn’t get very far.
“That’s fucking good,” Rogan said of the AI song.
“It depends what you mean by good,” Weinstein replied, grimacing.
The post Joe Rogan Keeps Playing AI-Generated Music for Guests, But He’s Speechless When One of Them Points Out That Podcasts Can Be AI-Generated Too appeared first on Futurism.
