George Carlin's estate sues over ghoulish AI routine featuring the late comedian's likeness and, surprise surprise, turns out it was written by a human

The late George Carlin was one of the greatest actors and comedians of his era, with roles too numerous to list, and died at the age of 71 in 2008. Such was Carlin's industry and volume of work that he remains a recognisable and beloved figure to this day, which may be why a podcast called Dudesy recently decided to use his likeness in an apparently AI-authored one hour comedy special titled, and this is almost unbelievable, «George Carlin: I'm Glad I'm Dead.»

The special itself is a slurry of sub-Carlin jokes set to AI-generated stills, with the software doing a weird impression of the comedian's voice. There's no imagery of Carlin himself other than a presumably AI-generated thumbnail showing a man with Carlin's distinctive grey ponytail. The backlash to this was instantaneous and widespread, with his daughter Kelly Carlin saying no permission was sought or granted, and «no machine will ever replace his genius [...] Humans are so afraid of the void that we can’t let what has fallen into it stay there … if you want to listen to the genuine George Carlin, he has 14 specials that you can find anywhere.» 

Now Carlin's estate has filed a lawsuit against Dudesy in California (spotted by Ars Technica). The special specifically presented itself as the product of an AI trained on decades of Carlin's material, which of course is all copyrighted, and the suit alleges this was used without permission «to fabricate a semblance of Carlin’s voice and generate a Carlin stand-up comedy routine [...] It is a casual theft of a great American artist’s work.»

But here's where things get interesting. Following this lawsuit, a rep for Dudesy host Will Sasso said the following to the New York Times:

«It’s a fictional podcast character created by two human beings, Will Sasso and Chad Kultgen,» said spokeswoman Danielle Del. «The YouTube video 'I’m Glad I’m Dead' was completely written by Chad Kultgen.»

Well well well. You may be wondering why on Earth the Dudesy podcast would have claimed