George Carlin Did Not Say the Four Words AI Generated

(January 30, 2024)  Unlike the “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television,” George Carlin never said nor preformed the comedy special “I’m Glad I’m Dead.” Those four words came from an artificial intelligence (“AI”) generated podcast on You Tube beginning in mid-January 2024.

The hour-long fake George Carlin comedy special was created by AI that was trained using five decades of Carlin’s original copyrighted standup comedy routines. The special also uses an AI generated Carlin sound-alike to read and perform the AI generated script. The originators of the Carlin special—Dudesy, LLC—did not obtain permission to use the copyrighted material nor the images of Carlin.

The copyright holders and the estate of Carlin sued Dudesy and others who participated in the podcast for copyright infringement and violation of Carlin’s right of publicity. “Defendants’ AI-generated ‘George Carlin Special’ is not a creative work. It is a piece of computer-generated click-bait which detracts from the value of Carlin’s comedic works and harms his reputation. It is a casual theft of a great American artist’s work,” the complaint states.

Carlin, who died in June 2008, was often referred to as the “dean of counterculture comedians.” The Grammy Award winner recorded nearly two dozen albums and performed in more than a dozen HBO standup comedy specials. The complaint notes that he was known for irreverent, boundary-pushing comedy. His most famous routine was a 1972 work titled “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television,” the performance of which led to his arrest in Milwaukee. The routine was later broadcast on the radio leading to a landmark decision in FCC v. Pacific Foundation, 438 U.S. 726 (1978) that found the work “indecent but not obscene.”

The current lawsuit contends that the defendants by using Carlin’s entire corpus of copyrighted works to teach AI models was an unauthorized copying and thus copyright infringement. The AI model then created the script for the “I’m Glad I’m Dead” show “that purports to be in George Carlin’s voice and reflect how Carlin would have commented on current events since his death in 2008,” the complaint states.

As to the AI-generated images, the complaint states: “In short, Defendants sought to capitalize on the name, reputation, and likeness of George Carlin in creating, promoting, and distributing the Dudesy Special and using generated images of Carlin, Carlin’s voice, and images designed to evoke Carlin’s presence on stage.”

The lawsuit asks for a preliminary and permanent injunction requiring that the podcast be taken down and for damages.

Main Sequence, Ltd. et al vs. Dudesy, LLC et al, U.S. District Court Central District of Calif. No. 2:24-cv-00711, filed January 25, 2024.