The Electronic Wireless Show podcast S2 Episode 37: lending an ear to The Finals' AI voices
They’re not great
While Rishi Sunak bundles nerds into Bletchley Park, we at the Electronic Wireless Show podcast are investigating the real danger of AI: somewhat rubbish text-to-speech voicelines making The Finals less fun. We discuss the arrival of AI voices in big-name games, the disappointingly businessy thinking behind it, and whether we can think up some uses for AI-generated material that we can actually get behind. All sparked by voice actor Gianni Matragrano’s video compilation of the lines in question, which you should probably watch before listening to this episode, or there’ll be a bit where Nate appears to bellow "THE KING FISH" for no reason. Well, maybe not no reason. It’s still Nate.
Plus! We talk about what we’ve been playing this week, which coincidentally for me was The Finals, while Nate’s been digging deeper into the Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor demo. I also recount the teeth-based controversy surrounding Cities: Skyline 2, in turn begging the question: what are they going to do with all those teeth?
You can listen above, or on on Spotify, iTunes, Stitcher, or Pocket Casts. You can find the RSS feed here, and you can discuss the episode on our Discord channel, which has a dedicated room for podcast chat.
Music is by Jack de Quidt.
Links
- Once again, here’s that compilation of wonky AI line readings from The Finals.
- The Meet the Makers podcast series featuring The Finals developers Embark Studios.
- Bad Cities: Skylines 2 performance? It’s the teeth, say reddit.
- Don’t Scream, the jumpscare assault course that punishes fear.
- I am unfortunately unable to find a link pertaining to the jackrabbit-obsessed chat bot that Nate refers to. Deepest apologies.
Recommendations this week are the farce-inducing party game box Beat That!, and for any aquarium owners listening, Chili Rasbora fish.