How was the fake Joe Rogan podcast made? AI creator shares the secret

The man behind the now-viral fake Joe Rogan podcast, Hugo, recently revealed how he used artificial intelligence (AI) and voice-cloning software to create imaginary conversations between the podcaster and his guests.

Rogan recently had his mind blown when OpenAI's trailblazing artificial intelligence model ChatGPT recreated a 51-minute episode of The Joe Rogan Experience (JRE) podcast.

The episode was uploaded to a YouTube channel called The Joe Rogan AI Experience and featured OpenAI CEO Sam Altman as a guest. Altman has notably never appeared on the actual JRE podcast.

Watch the full episode below:

In an interview with The Verge, the Sydney-based creative director of a VFX studio and an advertising agency opened up about how he made the fake podcast episode. After iterating the effort it takes to prompt a podcast script, convert it from text to audio, and edit it, Hugo stated:

"The first [episode] took me a week, the second one took me a day and a half, and the last one took me more than three weeks. It’s very dependent on many different aspects... I wanted to create a version of the Rogan podcast that wouldn't happen or hasn’t happened yet."

Hugo claimed that while he wishes to stage more hypothetical conversations between Joe Rogan and others, AI is still far from threatening real-life podcasters as it lacks emotion. He also described the artificial podcast as wordy and bland in the way it sounds.

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Joe Rogan AI podcast: What did the famous podcaster have to say about his fake conversation

After a ChatGPT-generated episode of the Joe Rogan podcast went viral online, the popular comedian reacted to watching an artificial version of himself have an entirely scripted conversation with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

Developed by OpenAI, ChatGPT is a natural language processing tool driven by artificial intelligence technology that enables the user to have human-like conversations with the chatbot along with many other tasks. The fake podcast conversed on themes common to the real JRE podcast, like technology.

Fake Rogan and Altman discussed topics such as the need for ethics in artificial intelligence, ChatGPT's impact on the content creation market, concerns about 'deep fake' content, and Elon Musk's opinion on OpenAI. Fans and social media users were particularly shocked by the accurate recreation of Rogan and Altman's voices.

Unsurprisingly, the famous podcaster was wary of such technology, given the scope of its potential for misuse. He tweeted:

"This is going to get very slippery, kids."