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by adamhartenz 592 days ago
To be fair, the majority of podcasts are from a group of generic white guys, and they almost sound identical to these AI generated ones. The AI actually seems to to do a better job too.
2 comments

Citation absolutely needed. You call this fair?

> the majority of podcasts are from a group of generic white guys

https://podcastcharts.byspotify.com/ keep the Pareto distribution in mind
I did the best fast research I could given not wanting to spend more than 20 minutes on it and came to this result (aprox): - Mixed/Diverse: 48.0% - White Men: 35.0% - Women: 8.0% - Non-White: 6.0% - White Woman: 2.0% - Non-White Woman: 1.0%
I love the "white = generic = bland" meme too. All the science and literature before 1930 it was trained on is also likely "generic white guys".
I laughed and sort of agreed with this, in spirit. You're off on the details I think though.

When I listened to the audio samples before coming to the comments, I thought: "oh, like those totally lifeless and bland U.S. accents from podcasts, YT, etc."

I wouldn't associate it with skin colour or gender though at all. I've no idea why you'd go there - any skin colour and any gender is absolutely welcomed into the fold of U.S. cultural production, if they can produce bland generic "content" sincerely enough, it seems to me.

Disclaimer: many U.S. accents are interesting and wonderful (Colorado; Tom Waits), they don't all sound generic and bland. I have U.S. friends therefore I can pass judgment (TM).