George Carlin's heirs have settled a lawsuit against podcasters who created a special with an AI copy of the comedian

George Carlin YouTube channel

The heirs of American comedian George Carlin have reached a settlement in a lawsuit previously filed against podcasters who created a special using artificial intelligence to mimic his voice and humour.

Here's What We Know

Carlin's heirs sued Dudesy podcast creators Will Sasso and Chad Kultgen in January this year, accusing them of violating the performer's right of publicity and copyright. Under the agreement reached, the controversial special will be permanently removed from the podcast's archive. Sasso and Kultgen also gave an undertaking never to republish it again and never to use Carlin's image, voice or likeness without the heirs' permission.

The artificial intelligence employed to create the special was trained on hours of recordings of Carlin's speeches. However, the result was disappointing, according to the comedian's daughter Kelly Carlin, who called it "poorly-executed facsimile".

Heirs' lawyer Josh Schiller warned that AI's ability to mimic voices and create fake content is a potential danger that requires tough legal action and liability on the part of the developers of such software.

Go Deeper:

• AI generated comedy special George Carlin. The comedian's daughter criticised the show
• George Carlin's relatives are suing the authors of the stand-up performance of "I'm Glad I'm Dead", which was generated by artificial intelligence
• The US Screen Actors Guild has condemned the deepfakes of Taylor Swift and George Carlin
• George Carlin's scandalous AI show was written by a human after all, the authors of the Dudesy podcast have admitted

Source: Engadget