The podcast format has remained largely the same since its inception in the early 2000s: short shows recorded by hosts and distributed digitally to entertain or inform listeners of news.
But with the advent of AI, tech companies are eager to bring out the essence of what makes the format so attractive in the first place: human-to-human connections.
In such, Washington Post announced this week It’s launching an AI-based podcast service that allows listeners to choose their own format and even their own disembodied AI host.
“Your personal podcast” is available to users on the newspaper’s mobile app from today – but whether anyone will be impressed by the company’s offer of potentially misinformed AI slop remains to be seen.
after SemaphoreMax Tani announcement highlights On BlueSky, reactions were almost unanimous.
“Stop trying to force AI down my throat,” one user said. replied“I don’t want it anywhere,”
a user compared to “Giving matches to children” while the other predicted A “complete disaster.”
Their concerns are certainly justified, given the technology’s track record. Large language models have a very well-documented tendency to fabricate facts and even more biases are found in their training data, a reality made all the more problematic given people’s interests. WaPoThe owner and co-founder of Amazon is Jeff Bezos.
Under his ownership, the newspaper has made great strides in transforming itself into a technology company, a notable departure from its heritage as a trustworthy source of news.
The paper also announced a major overhaul of its opinion section earlier this year to focus on “individual freedom and free markets,” raising major concerns that it is losing its independence and journalistic neutrality. Bezos has maintained a warm relationship with President Donald Trump, leading some to warn that the newspaper could soon switching to a conservative outlet Grateful for the billionaire’s financial interests.
This year, WaPo Despite the media’s already disastrous efforts, AI has rapidly doubled down on impact, resulting in chaos and countless error-laden news articles.
A WaPo spokesperson told digiday Users can eventually chat with their AI podcast host to ask for clarification.
“The idea of a podcast that you can talk back to, or have a conversation with? That’s really the power here,” Glenn Rubenstein, CEO of podcast advertising agency Adapter Media, told the outlet.
“We really want to think first about how we can reach that broader audience before we start aggressively monetizing,” he said.
Users remain deeply skeptical, highlighting widespread disillusionment with AI.
“Wapo is eliminating online misinformation by cutting out the middleman and producing it ourselves,” author Tyler King wrote in a post on BlueSky. “You can’t do it (quality control) on a large scale.”
“Even models trained only on internal data are not immune to hallucinations,” he said. “It’s the Madlibs of ‘Podcasting’.”
More WaPo, The Washington Post is secretly planning to start publishing articles created using AI
