## AI Radio Host Fools Listeners in Australia for Months
An Australian radio station, CADA, successfully deployed an AI-generated DJ named “Thy” for months without listeners noticing, raising questions about transparency and the future of radio broadcasting. The revelation, first reported by the *Australian Financial Review* and *The Sydney Morning Herald*, exposes a growing trend of utilizing AI in media production, often without clear disclosure.
*Workdays with Thy*, a four-hour show featuring hip hop, R&B, and pop music, has been broadcasting on CADA, a Sydney radio station, since November 2024. The show’s description boasts that it allows listeners to “hear it first with Thy” and discover the songs “charting or on the cusp of blowing up.” However, the show’s webpage makes no mention of the fact that the host is AI-generated.
ARN Media, the owner of CADA, confirmed that Thy’s voice was created using ElevenLabs, an AI voice generator. Interestingly, Thy’s voice and likeness are modeled after a real employee within the company’s financial department, blurring the lines between human and artificial representation even further.
The lack of transparency has drawn criticism from industry professionals. Teresa Lim, the vice president of the Australian Association of Voice Actors, expressed her disappointment on LinkedIn, stating that “Australian listeners deserve honesty and upfront disclosure instead of a lack of transparency leading them to trust a fake person they think is a real on-air person.”
ARN CEO Ciaran Davis acknowledged the challenges posed by the evolving media landscape, stating, “We’re trying to understand what’s real and what’s not. What we’ve learned is the power of the announcers we have.”
This isn’t the first instance of AI sneaking into the media landscape unnoticed. Microsoft recently revealed that an advertisement for their Surface products, which debuted in January, was also generated using AI.
The use of AI in radio is not entirely new. Several stations, including those in Portland, Oregon, and Sirius XM, have experimented with AI technologies. However, the CADA case, where an AI host operated undetected for months, highlights the growing sophistication and potential impact of AI in media. In a more drastic case, a Polish radio station replaced laid-off journalists with AI hosts, only to reverse the decision following public backlash.
The “Thy” experiment in Australia raises critical questions about the ethical considerations of using AI in broadcasting. As AI technology advances, the industry must grapple with the need for transparency, the impact on human employment, and the potential for misleading audiences. The future of radio may well be shaped by how these challenges are addressed.