NOW that artificial intelligence is colonising so many aspects of modern life, it was inevitable that podcasts should start appearing that give no sign of human involvement. I am now a little worried that I may have already reviewed examples without noticing; but, in the case of A Daily Dose of History (Klassic Studios, released daily), at least, there is no doubt. The male and female “presenters” give themselves names, but, if these are real people, then they are in dire need of psychological help.
The intention of the podcast is to provide a daily digest of historical events. I tuned in on 28 September, and learned about the victory of Wenceslaus of Bohemia over somebody or other, the victory of another Bohemian king over some other rival, and the landing of William the Conqueror in England at the start of the Norman Conquest.
To compare it to an audio version of Wikipedia would be to do the latter a disservice. This was like listening to series of textbook “10-markers” for an A-level history exam (if, as the result of some new and bizarre governmental intervention into the educational system, the history of medieval Bohemia displaced Henry VIII and the Nazis from the syllabus).
If the delivery, sentence structure, and formulaic presentation of facts aren’t incriminating enough, then there are the mispronunciations. Thus, it sounded as if Pope Pontion was sent to the mines of Sardinia at precisely 2:35, our AI hosts having not yet been programmed to render first-millennium dates in an unambiguous format. We might forgive the computer for making a hash of “King Boleslaus”, but not for misunderstanding his ordinal, thus rendering the poor chap as “Bowlslouse-eye”. One wonders whether this stuff is made purely for other AIs. Thus “bot shall spout rubbish unto bot.”
Tim Harford, in contrast, is a real person, with real credibility. As well as the long-running More or Less, he runs a side-hustle in Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford (released as BBC Sounds podcasts), which is currently asking, as part of a four-part mini-series, whether it pays to be nice.
The answer from last week’s case study, of Captain Bligh, the ill-fated captain of HMS Bounty, would seem to be, No. Bligh saw himself as a pioneer of good practice, sympathetic to the working conditions of his crew and guided, above all, by reason. Far from being the entitled overlord, Bligh was of humble birth, at least relative to his friend and subsequent usurper, Fletcher Christian. The trouble was that he never accounted for the possibility that others might not recognise his definition of fairness; and, when crossed, Bligh reverted to disciplinarian type.
The story may not yield quite the richness of significance which Harford claims, but it is a ripping yarn, recounted here with intriguing nuance.