More than 15 years after his death, stand-up comedian George Carlin was brought back to life in an artificial intelligence-generated special called “George Carlin: I'm Glad I'm Dead.”
The hour-long special, released Tuesday, comes from Dudesy, a comedy AI who hosts a podcast and YouTube show with Mad TV alum Will Sasso and podcaster Chad Kutlgen.
“I just want to make it very clear to you that what you are about to hear is not George Carlin. “It's my imitation of George Carlin, which I developed exactly as a human impressionist would do,” Dudesy said at the start of the special. “I listened to all of George Carlin's material and did my best to imitate his voice, rhythm and demeanor, as well as the subject matter that I think would have interested him today. So think of it like Andy Kaufman portraying Elvis or Will Ferrell portraying George W. Bush.”
In the stand-up special, the AI-generated portrayal of Carlin, who died of heart failure in 2008, tackled common topics such as mass shootings, the American class system, streaming services, social media and AI itself.
“There is one profession that is most threatened by AI – one that is most likely to disappear entirely because of artificial intelligence: stand-up comedy,” said the AI-generated Carlin. “I know what every stand-up comic around the world is saying right now: 'I'm an artist and my art form is too creative, too nuanced, too subtle to be reproduced by a machine.' No computer program can tell a fart joke as well as I can.'”
At some point, AI Carlin threw shade at billionaires like Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, X/Twitter owner Elon Musk and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
“If you're tired of watching Jeff Bezos fly into space in his tail rocket, stop using Amazon for a month. The company is going under, Bezos is disappearing,” said AI Carlin.
Kelly Carlin, the late stand-up comedian's daughter, posted one Statement on X/Twitter Wednesday evening for the AI-generated special.
“My father spent a lifetime perfecting his craft using his very human life, brain and imagination. No machine will ever replace his genius. These AI-generated products are clever attempts to recreate a mind that will never exist again,” she wrote. “Let’s let the artist’s work speak for itself. People are so afraid of the void that we cannot allow what has fallen into it to remain there.”
Kelly continued: “Here's an idea, how about we listen to some live human comedians? But if you want to listen to the real George Carlin, he has 14 specials you can find anywhere.”
