Australian Radio Network (ARN), the media company behind KIIS, as well as Gold and iHeart, used an AI-generated female Asian host to broadcast 4 hours of midweek radio, without disclosing it.
The fake presenter, “Thy”, has been generated reportedly using someone in the finance department at ARN. The show broadcasts on CADA – “Australia’s home of Hip Hop and R&B”, 11am-3pm, weekdays.
“Thy will be playing you the hottest tracks from around the world,” the show’s promo blurb says.
“Curated by our music experts, these are the songs that are charting or on the cusp of blowing up – hear it first with Thy so you can boast to your friends and say you were all over it first.”
While Spotify users are familiar with the platform’s AI DJ, which kicked off in early 2023, it’s clearly disclosed. Thy has been “on air” for around six months without any disclosure that it’s an AI-generated presenter.
ElevenLabs, a New York startup cofounded in 2022 by a former Google machine learning engineer and a former Palantir deployment strategist, created Thy for CADA.
ARN declares it’s “an inclusive workplace embracing diversity in all its forms”, and that appears to include Large Language Models.
The issue was first flagged last week when journalist Stephanie Coombes had a tip off and did some sleuthing on her site, The Carpet, unable to find any other digital presence or backstory for Thy.
“In audio you can’t make an exceptional cup of tea in the office kitchenette without a press release going to trade publications like MediaWeek and Radio Today,” Coombes wrote.
“It seems very odd that CADA hired a new ethnically-diverse woman to their youth station and then just forgot to tell anyone.”
It’s notable because ARN is the whitest thing in media since the Night King and his throng of walkers on Game of Thrones. The network is also home of Australia’s most expensive, complained about and censured radio show, Kyle and Jackie O.
The ARN leadership team
As Coombes noted: “I looked through the host lineup for KIIS, GOLD and CADA – ARN’s three major radio brands which broadcast around the country. Across nine stations, it seems that there’s only one person who outwardly presents as diverse”. She goes on to ask if they invented an Asian woman rather than hiring one.
The story was picked up by the AFR, which confirmed with ARN that Thy was an AI creation.
Mediaweek also weighed in, but the media company refused to say if the woman Thy is modelled on was being paid for her contribution as the fake presenter.
In a statement to Mediaweek, ARN said: “We’ve been trialling AI audio tools on CADA using the voice of Thy, an ARN team member. This is a space being explored by broadcasters globally, and while the trial has offered valuable insights, it’s also reinforced the unique value that personalities bring to creating truly compelling content.”
Coombes argued subsequently that the AI presenter was unlikely to save the company that paid Kyle and Jackie O $200 million to keep talking about genitalia over breakfast any money
“Junior radio presenters are cheap and plentiful. Thy’s shift would have cost around $35k a year for a casual to cover,” she wrote.
“I suspect than the enterprise deal ARN has struck with AI voice-cloning software ElevenLabs would be in the same vicinity.
“The process isn’t particularly efficient, either. ElevenLabs uses text-to-voice technology, meaning every sentence that Thy ‘spoke’ had to first be written out manually by a person and then fed into the program.”
Among those concerned that AI was used to create an Asian presenter was Australian Association of Voice Actors vice president Teresa Lim, who said on LinkedIn that “listeners deserve honesty and upfront disclosure instead of a lack of transparency” calling the decision to create an AI Asian presenter exploitative.
“ARN, did you actually think using ‘Thy’ was a tick in the diversity box? Because for the very limited number of us actual Asian female broadcasters who have fought our entire careers for more wider and inclusive representation in Australian media, this move is tokenistic and exploitative,” she said.
“This is a decision that I find so deeply insulting to the minority I represent in our Australian media. Already bracing myself for the ‘Asians stealing our jobs – AI version’ landing anytime soon.”
The CADA homepage for Thy still doesn’t disclose that she’s AI, several days after the truth emerged.
