What you’re watching above looks like a podcast narrated by a chill Brit called Cliff Knotes, in an episode devoted to Second Life. But here’s the thing: The podcaster is AI generated, and the content that "Cliff" is discussing was pulled completely from Wikipedia.
This is Wikéo, a new YouTube channel and site which converts Wikipedia entries into bite-sized podcasts with various AI narrators. In full disclosure, it’s part of a project I’m consulting on (more on that later) but I have no input on Wikéo itself – other than challenging the co-designer, Clifford Champion, to generate these episodes about Second Life.
"Wikipedia is not perfect, but the value it’s brought to civilization is immense,” Champion tells me, describing his inspiration for Wikéo, “an amazing concentration of knowledge."
The problem, as he sees it: Though Wikipedia has grown ever more massive, most people using the Internet tend to prefer video and podcasts to reading. "AI is an opportunity to bridge that gap, to bridge what I call the format gap."
Five different foundation models go into activating the voices, with 8 different “shows” all delivering the same information from Wikipedia. He tells me Hugo the Honey Badger (yes, below) is the most popular.
To deal with controversial or highly sensitive topics (the Holocaust, serial killers, etc.) Wikéo has a scoring system which flags hot button stories, so an upcoming episode can be human-reviewed first. One option is to only publish episodes on extreme topics through “Professor Alexei”, Wikéo’s dry, highly academic-themed AI – that way, the podcast is informative without seeming emotionally manipulative.
An avid podcast listener himself, Clifford spent a lot of time analyzing what makes for an engaging show – not just the personality of the host and the topics covered, but the nuances of vibe and point of view.
Google, it should be said, has a variation of this podcast feature on its AI platform, but is offered more as a tool for researchers. Wikéo, Clifford tells me, is meant to be more of a media play:
“We're curating the content for you. If you already listen to podcasts, it's as simple as subscribing.”
And no, this isn’t meant to “replace” human podcasters:
