The disc jockey, who plays Ortrock songs on Edmonton's airwaves late Sunday nights, jokes about introducing himself and being asked regularly about firmware updates.
Her irony is also automatically corrected.
When she first starts hosting, she says songs from her show will be buffered during the transition.
“Now, it remixes the traffic report,” says AI DJ Sarah on her weekly two-hour radio show before introducing it. Welcome to Black Parade American rock band My Chemical Romance.
According to Rogers Sports & Media, Sarah began hosting at Sonic 102.9 a few years ago from midnight to midnight from 10pm.
Lolibexted, a professor of Radio and Sound Study at Toronto Metropolitan University, says the computerized DJ is one of several people who have appeared on radio stations around Canada and around the world in recent years.
“We are at this stage in the world of technology, and we can use AI that basically looks like personality and sound, and we can make our voices out of thin air,” Beckstead said.
Rogers Sports & Media said in a statement that the use of the technology is purely added to the station.
“It's time slots that we didn't have DJs before, so staffing is not affected,” the spokesperson said in an email.
“We are exploring opportunities to use this technology to improve the listener experience on radio while programming music alone.”
Rogers says that human producers will direct Sarah's script and guide the content during the broadcast.
Rogers did not answer any questions about hiring humans to host Sunday's time slots.
Beckstead said Sarah's presence on weekends that aren't airing on Edmonton is disappointing.
“In a commercial company, the goal is to make as much money as possible,” she said.
“We welcome AI to do work that can do. If we lived in a society where the people we are refuge could earn basic levels of income.”
Byrnes Communications Inc. owner Chris Byrnes said AI Radio hosts Cleo and Layla were among the first to hit Canadian radio waves when it was launched at Ontario stations two years ago.
“We can't find anyone to work overnight… So we decided that putting an AI voice overnight is better than nothing,” he said in a phone interview.
“I'm not at work.”
Cleo and Leila hosts said from midnight until 5:30am, humans took over the course of thousands of local news, traffic and weather during their morning commute.
They initially played music and only talked about the weather, Burns said, but now the station promotes other shows in scripts.
Once an hour, they scan social media to select topics from platforms that check what people are talking about within the station's geographical boundaries, he said.
They then run it on their own computerized filtration system, removing broadcast or offensive information before discussing topics in the air.
They also look at the music logs and look for information about the artist before playing the music. Before introducing the song by pop star Sabrina Carpenter, Cleo describes the artist as a former Disney Channel actress.
Burns said station workers go back to the show to listen to the error and catch the error, including the time when one of the jokes mispronounced Regina.
Burns said over time the station is playing with how the jockey sounds, including the pace of his voice and personality.
“We can choose the voice we want,” he said. “Do we want to be cheeky about it? Do we want to be sarcasm about it? Do we want to be brighter about it?
“We've been playing with it to get a voice that I think will work.”
After two years of work, he described the jockey as a “basic” sound.
Bynres said 10,000 to 15,000 people listened to Cleo and Layla overnight.
Still, he said that AI will not completely replace on-air talent.
“But I think people who don't accept AI will end up being replaced,” he said. “The reality is that we all interact with AI multiple times a day. Most of us don't understand that.”
