Working with audio is ultimately human, and thus indispensably entangled with culture. Sarah Toporoff, the host for this session, presented three cases from three different countries, where audio and cultural transmission go hand in hand.
Lukas Sapik from the Czech Republic presented the project “the way from Karel Gott to Gott forever”. The singer Karel Gott passed away in 2019, just after finishing his autobiography “my way to happiness”. To celebrate the 100-year anniversary of regular broadcasting in the Czech Republic, Lukas Sapik´s team wanted to create his AI voice in cooperation with the university in Pilsen. To read out “my way to happiness”, a classic synthetic voice was not good enough, as a variety of emotions was needed. The team therefore created their own AI-voice, in the end reading 1600 words. Over one million people listened to the audiobook in the 49 days after its release.
Becky Lipscombe talked about what happens to a culture when it is transplanted from its home and implanted somewhere else. Elder generations then struggle to keep young people engaged with their culture – sometimes the young ones find ways to interpret the old culture in new ways, for example in mixing traditional music with new styles, like techno. Often, young people come back to the culture and traditions of the old, but they all need to find their own way.
Jo Raknes, Editor in chief at NRK Norway presented a project which highlighted the value of AI for the protection of minority and endangered languages. Minority languages like Sámi, a group of indigenous varieties spoken in Scandinavia, often lack appropriate representation in audio and media. The Norwegian public broadcaster NRK set itself the goal to support Sámi languages through the use of media content. To create audio content for such a small speaker community is, however, not easy. By using the help of AI to create the first ever podcast in Sàmi language, NRK broke new ground and opened up new opportunities to “help understand what it is to be Sámi today, […] and help them feel understood and important” (Jo Raknes). Potentially, AI is the future of minority languages in audio and radio.
