‘Write him cheap’: MDR’s dead now do copywork
A new AI voice package promises to revive old television voices for a modern audience, but the real labor is making the deceased sound even more like a budget moderator from a compliance webinar.
The official story is preservation: public broadcasters keeping memory alive with synthetic help. The less flattering version is that the dead are being assigned the same canned phrases, sponsor-friendly tone, and suspiciously cheerful neutrality that living presenters use to survive.