It’s becoming increasingly common these days for a person who is no longer alive to return in some form.

Sir Michael Parkinson hosted a talk show called Parkinson’s between 1971 and 2007, which had a huge following in the UK and beyond. Parkinson died last August at the age of 88, and a new podcast series is being produced with the support of the Parkinson family, using artificial intelligence to bring his voice to life to interview various guests. It will be called Virtually Parkinson and produced by Deep Fusion Films. Eight episodes are initially planned and are already being championed by Michael Parkinson’s son Mike.

He told BBC Radio 4: “I want to make it clear that this is about artificial intelligence and that Deep Fusion co-founders Ben Field and Jamie Anderson are completely ethical about it. They are aware of the legal and ethical issues and they are not going to present it as real. Mike also talked about how he had planned to do a podcast with his father before he died, but it never happened. So he went to see Deep Fusion, and he says it’s incredible what they’ve done with their AI, because he didn’t think they could do such an accurate replica. He thinks his “technophobic” father would be impressed with his copy.

Anderson says that this is not a replacement for Parkinson’s, but just a new podcast where Sir Michael’s legacy can continue, so it doesn’t take work away from others. This is an odd statement because there will be brand new interviews, the AI will be autonomous, so the editors will let it start the interview and leave the AI alone from there, trained on Sir Michael’s style and questions. He can’t talk about the interviewees yet, but there are a few open positions. They will be known by Anderson’s statement.

At least it’s not like the Polish state radio studio in Krakow, where they suddenly turned what was originally a radio about the city’s club life into a station run exclusively by AI presenters (we reported on it).

Source: PCGamer, BBC