Joe Rogan has weighed in on President Joe Biden's call to Vice President Kamala Harris during her speech on Monday—and the podcast host has questioned whether it was AI-generated.
On Sunday, President Joe Biden announced that he would not be seeking reelection in the 2024 presidential race. On the same day, he threw his support behind Harris. His decision followed weeks of pressure from within his party and from key Democratic donors to step down amid concerns over his age and mental acuity.
Since the announcement, Harris has secured enough delegates to become the presumptive Democratic nominee, meaning she will likely be former President Donald Trump's opponent in November's election. On Monday Biden called Harris during her first speech since he dropped out of the 2024 race, in which he reaffirmed his commitment to the 2024 campaign.
On a recent episode of his podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, with guest and stand-up comedian Bridget Phetasy, Rogan shared a video from someone online testing whether Biden's phone call was AI-generated.
Newsweek emailed spokespeople for Biden and Rogan for comment on Thursday.
"Here's the thing about the, uh, AI voice thing, so play this," Rogan said before his producer played a video of a man claiming to test the audio of Biden's phone call.
In the clip, the person uploaded a recording of the phone call into ElevenLabs—a software company that specializes in developing natural-sounding speech using AI—and eventually a message that read "Very likely. Probability 98%. It's very likely that this audio was generated with ElevenLabs" popped up on the screen.
However, Rogan's producer later said in the episode that the creator of the video might have actually been exposing a glitch.
"So he might have been exposing a glitch where every few times that app says that anything was created by [AI]," he said.
When Rogan asked if they could test it for themselves, the producer uploaded an old podcast episode to find out what the result would be.
"Look they ran the sample, 'Very unlikely,' so it was right. 'Probability of 2.0%. It's very unlikely this audio was generated with ElevenLabs or the audio was manipulated," Rogan said, reading the results on screen.
His producer then suggested that they run it a few times to test out whether the site was glitching or not.
"Hold on a second, that, that makes sense. Like, that means it's accurate," Rogan said before his producer explained: "This is the guy who made the original tweet, uh, this is the guy who posted the goofy little glitch that makes ElevenLabs say his voice was AI generated once every few tests."
As they questioned the test that had been run, Rogan said the phone call still sounded like AI to him.
"[It] sounded like AI to me it sounded like there's a weird ... there's a weird fake expression, there's a, there's a smell, like when you, you hear, it there's a smell," he said as they played a part of the phone call again.
"'It just seems, there's something—the 'heart and soul into me,' it's 'something into me,' it's like, it's a robot talking, it's it's Ex Machina."
Earlier in the episode, when Phetasy said "they found [Biden] now," Rogan quipped: "Allegedly."
When Phetasy said a video of Biden has been shared online, the podcast host said: "Yeah that's what I'm saying. Listen I'm not saying th—I'm not saying that he's, he's not really, that's not really Joe Biden, that's a guy in a CIA makeup suit walking up the stairs.
"I'm not saying that but they can do that. You know they can do that now."
During Monday's phone call, which was made to Harris's campaign team in Wilmington, Delaware, Biden declared, "I'm not going anywhere," signaling his intention to remain actively involved in the upcoming election. Meanwhile, Harris delivered a speech that outlined her vision for the campaign and the country.
The transition of power within the Democratic ticket unfolded at Biden's former campaign headquarters in the Brandywine Building, which is now set to become Harris's base of operations. The vice president met with members of the Delaware delegation, while local police secured the perimeter around the downtown location.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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