Radio station faces backlash after listeners duped by AI host for 6 months

An Australian radio station is facing backlash from listeners after it revealed that an artificial intelligence-generated host had been hosting a show for six months.
The virtual host named Thy was created by ElevenLabs, which is a voice-cloning AI software used by Australian Radio Network (ARN) station CADA.
The Sydney-based radio station had Thy hosting a show called Workdays with Thy that aired four hours a day from Monday to Friday, where she would play music and introduce songs.
The show's website promoted the show, writing, 'Curated by our music experts, these are the songs that are charting or on the cusp of blowing up — hear it first with Thy so you can boast to your friends and say you were all over it first.'
The station didn't let its listeners know that Thy was not a real person. Its secret was revealed after Sydney-based writer Stephanie Coombes started asking about Thy's identity in a blog post.
Story continues below advertisement
Coombes asked, 'What's Thy's last name? Who is she? Where did she come from?'
'There is no biography, or further information about the woman who is supposedly presenting this show,' Coombes added.
This led to the radio station's owner, ARN Media, confirming to the Australian Financial Review that while Thy is AI-generated, her voice and likeness are modelled after an actual employee in the company's financial department.
'We've been trialing AI audio tools on CADA, using the voice of Thy, an ARN team member,' a spokesperson for ARN said in a statement. 'This is a space being explored by broadcasters globally, and the trial has offered valuable insights.'
The spokesperson also said the trial highlighted 'the power of real personalities in driving compelling content.'
Story continues below advertisement
Teresa Lim, vice-president of the Australian Association of Voice Actors, called out CADA's failure to disclose its use of AI in a LinkedIn post.
Get daily National news
Get the day's top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day. Sign up for daily National newsletter Sign Up
By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy
'AI can be such a powerful and positive tool in broadcasting if there are correct safeguards in place,' she wrote. 'Authenticity and truth are so important for broadcast media. The public deserves to know what the source is of what's being broadcast.… We need to have these discussions now before AI becomes so advanced that it's too difficult to regulate.'
Lim also referenced being an Asian woman working in Australian media and how it can be difficult for her demographic to break into the broadcasting industry.
'As an Asian-Australian female HUMAN voice actor and presenter in the radio and advertising industry, I find this industry-first move offensive on various levels,' Lim wrote.
'When we found out she was just a cardboard cut-out, it cemented the disappointment. There are a limited number of Asian-Australian female presenters who are available for the job, so just give it to one of them. Don't take that opportunity away from a minority group who's already struggling,' she added.
Lim suggested that the way forward to work with AI in radio broadcasting is by creating 'explicit AI labelling laws to precent this level of deception.'
'We need transparency in the use and creation of AI material. The Australian public deserve to be able to trust what we hear on-air,' she added.
Story continues below advertisement
Many listeners took to social media to discuss the importance of disclosing this information after it was revealed that Thy was an AI personality.
ICYMI the creation of "Thy" as an unlabelled AI generated radio host of a daily 4 hour hiphop show by CADA is a disturbing attack on the arts and radio.
Why on earth are we letting AI do roles that many young (and not so young!) people would be so keen to do!? pic.twitter.com/EBuucYo0jw
— David Shoebridge (@DavidShoebridge) April 24, 2025
🧐 "Did you tune into Aussie radio station CADA's DJ Thy? Surprise, you've been listening to an AI! For months, AI has been spinning tracks and no one noticed. Let's discuss the implications of AI in our day-to-day lives. How does this reflect on future of AI and its potential in pic.twitter.com/iYosVrmvXG
— Afritab (@Afritab) April 27, 2025
Story continues below advertisement
The backlash against CADA's AI DJ, Thy, raises important questions about transparency in AI deployment. Ignoring to disclose that an on-air host is an AI can impact listener trust. As AI continues to become integral in creative fields, ethical considerations surrounding…
— Gaal (@Gaal_ai) April 26, 2025
A famous Australian radio station CADA secretly used an #AI voice, created by ElevenLabs, for six months without listeners noticing it wasn't human!
The AI host, based on a real employee, ran a 4-hour daily music segment reaching over 72,000 listeners.
— Hossam Fatnassi (@hsmftn) April 27, 2025
Story continues below advertisement
AI has come under increasing criticism in recent months, particularly after artists were forced to warn fans of 'fake' songs spreading online that use AI to mimic their voices.
Most recently, Celine Dion's representatives posted a statement on her Instagram saying that songs purporting to be a replicated version of Dion are 'not approved and are not songs from her official discography.'
They said the recordings have appeared on various digital platforms.
While Dion's camp did not reference the songs by name, several fake recordings have popped up on YouTube credited as an AI model of the singer's voice.
Story continues below advertisement
One is a cover of the gospel song Heal Me Lord, which has amassed more than one million views, while versions of a fake Dion have been used for several duets, including one of I Will Always Love You with Whitney Houston and See You Again with Charlie Puth.
— With files from The Canadian Press

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

Global News

4 hours ago

• Global News

Looking back on the early days of LGBTQ2 rock

Music can be a very powerful thing when it comes to changing the world. Rock has been used to spread political and social messages. It has been used to enlighten, to educate, to motivate, and to protest. These are the stories of musicians who weren't afraid of admitting to their sexuality when society wasn't ready to hear it. Pride Month is the perfect time to recognize the contributions and sacrifices made by various LGBTQ2 musicians during the era when you just didn't talk about who you loved. I'll start by posing this question, although you know the answer, but I'll ask it anyway. What do the following people have in common? Tchaikovsky, Handel, Schubert, George Gershwin, Beatles manager Brian Epstein, Freddie Mercury, B-52's singer Fred Schneider, Morrissey, punk legend Bob Mould, and Michael Stipe of R.E.M.? Here are a few more: Pioneering pre-rock guitarist sister Rosetta Tharp, Janis Joplin, Joan Jett, Mellisa Etheridge, Tegan and Sara, and St. Vincent. Story continues below advertisement All of the above — and many, many more — identify as gay, non-binary, bisexual, or someone LGBTQ2. Who was the first rocker to come out of the closet? A good pick would be Little Richard, although he battled with his sexuality throughout his life. His image was always campy and fabulous and the original uncensored lyrics to his hit 'Tutti Frutti' leave little doubt. But in 1957, right in the middle of an Australian tour, he had a crisis of faith after claiming to have dreamt of his own damnation, much of which had to do with being gay. He quit the music business and never again reached the rights he achieved in the 1950s. The next major coming-out was David Bowie. He's been sporadically attracting attention since 1964 when he appeared on British TV as the spokesperson for a made-up organization known as The International League for the Preservation of Animal Filament. He was just 17 at the time. Story continues below advertisement But Bowie had just started. In January 1970, he became one of the first pop stars to be interviewed by Jeremy, a gay magazine. The article had nothing to do with his sexuality, but the very fact that he appeared in a gay magazine was very radical. Just three years earlier, you could still be sent to prison for being a homosexual. Ten months later, the cover of his The Man Who Sold the World album featured Bowie lounging in a long flowing blue dress designed by a man known as Mr. Fish. This was the most feminized male image of a rock star the world had ever seen. Many record stores (especially in the U.S.) refused to display or even stock the record, necessitating the release of a version with alternate artwork. Even so, the record sold less than 1,500 copies in America between November 1970 and June 1971. Such was the state of the world then. Get breaking National news For news impacting Canada and around the world, sign up for breaking news alerts delivered directly to you when they happen. Sign up for breaking National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy The real shock came in the Jan. 22, 1972, issue of Melody Maker, one of the U.K.'s big weekly music magazines when Bowie stated, 'I'm gay and always have been.' It was largely a publicity stunt to set up the debut of his Ziggy Stardust character. But for certain people, the effect of those words was incalculable. Ziggy's androgynous bisexuality, makeup, and glitter (along with what was described as a lewd performance on Top of the Pops) offered hope to closeted people around the planet. Story continues below advertisement Yet Bowie (via Ziggy) wasn't the world's first openly gay rock star. We might look to Lou Reed, whose parents sent him for electro-shock therapy as a teenager as a way to exorcise what they feared were 'homosexual tendencies.' In 1972, after leaving The Velvet Underground, he adopted a very glam image, wearing S&M and fetish gear, hair bleached almost white, and black painted fingernails. His songs often explored the kinky side of life, including 'Walk on the Wild Side,' a top 40 hit that told the story of some of the more colourful real-life characters in Andy Warhol's world: Candy Darling, Holly Woodlawn, Joe Dallesandro, and Joe 'Sugar Plum Fairy' Campbell. Even though Lou married a woman in 1973, many just supposed he was gay. Was he? Certainly bisexual at the very least, but he never was public about it. Story continues below advertisement The first rock singer to be unambiguous about being gay was Jobriath. Born Bruce Campbell, he was a former member of a forgotten California band called Pigeon. From there, he got into musical theatre, performing in productions of Hair. He was also a part-time drug addict and occasional rent boy. In the early 1970s, he acquired a manager named Jerry Brandt who almost immediately struck a half-million-dollar deal with Elektra Records. His debut album was recorded with help from Peter Frampton and John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin. To launch the record, Elektra paid for a $200,000 billboard of a nearly-nude Jobriath in the middle of Times Square. Full-page ads appeared in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Vogue, and even Penthouse. Another $200,000 was spent on a stage production that was supposed to open at the Paris Opera House, which included a 40-foot model of the Empire State Building that was supposed to symbolize…well, you know. And in interviews, Jobriath referred to himself as 'a true fairy.' Story continues below advertisement But it all came crashing down. The Paris shows never happened, and after two poorly-selling albums, Jobriath disappeared. He bounced between New York and Los Angeles, not doing much of anything because of a punishing iron-clad managerial contract. By the early '80s, his bathhouse habits caught up to him and he contracted HIV/AIDs. He died on Aug. 3, 1987, one week after his 10-year contract with Jerry Brandt expired. Years later, thanks mostly to a contingent of fans who discovered him after his death — Morrissey is one of his great admirers and promoters — the world came to know about Jobriath's contribution to LGBTQ2 history. We need to acknowledge a few others. A British folk-rock band called Everyone Involved sang a few pro-gay songs as early as 1972. There's a 1973 song by Chris Robinson entitled 'Looking for a Boy Tonight.' A German band, Flying Lesbians, appeared briefly in 1975. Steve Grossman was an openly gay folk-blues singer in the '70s. And in 1978, The Gay/Lesbian Freedom Band, which billed itself as the first openly gay musical organization in the world, was founded in San Francisco. One of the great things about '70s punk rock was the concept that music belonged to everyone and that anyone should be able to make music, regardless of age, economic background, musical ability, gender, or sexual orientation. Punk allowed gay performers such as Pete Shelley of The Buzzcocks, Elton Motello, Jayne (formerly Wayne) County, and Ricky Wilson of The B-52's (who tragically may be the first rock performer to die of AIDS). Story continues below advertisement There were others, too. While no one in the New York Dolls was gay (at least we don't think so), they were the first band to really push androgyny as part of their image with makeup, big hair, and of course, plenty of spandex (history records that they seem to have been the first group to perform in spandex.) Big Boys were a Texas punk band into skateboarding long before it was mainstream. Frontman Randy 'Biscuit' Turner was loudly and proudly out. New Wave took the campy elements of disco and featured hundreds of techno-pop acts with effeminate men and androgynous performers. By the early '80s, many bravely played up their sexuality. Think Boy George of Culture Club, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, and Canada's Carole Pope in Rough Trade, a name taken from gay subculture. She was up front about being a lesbian. 'Yeah, I've got different ideas about sex. You wanna make something of it?' Pretty bold stuff for dull, boring, conservative Canada. Story continues below advertisement As the '80s faded into the '90s, projections and demonstrations of non-heterosexuality became mainstream. There's still homophobia and prejudice, but most music fans today could care less about whether a performer is gay, straight, queer, or trans. And we wouldn't have arrived here if it were not for those brave early pioneers. Happy Pride, everyone.

Winnipeg Free Press

15 hours ago

• Winnipeg Free Press

Natalie Sue wins Leacock Medal for Humour for novel ‘I Hope This Finds You Well'

Natalie Sue's debut novel 'I Hope This Finds You Well' has won this year's Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour. The $25,000 award is given to the best Canadian book of literary humour published in the previous year. The novel follows the story of an office worker in her early thirties who one day stumbles upon all of her colleagues' private emails and decides to use their gossip to help save her job. 'I Hope This Finds You Well' was published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. Sue is a Calgary-based author of Iranian and British descent who spent her early years living in western Canada. Runners-up, who received $5,000 each, were Greg Kearney for 'An Evening With Birdy O'Day,' about an aging hairstylist who lost connection with his childhood best friend when he left to pursue a pop music career, and Patricia J. Parsons for 'We Came From Away: That Summer on the Rock,' which follows one woman's attempt to reconnect her family with Newfoundland. This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 21, 2025.

Winnipeg Free Press

a day ago

• Winnipeg Free Press

A book with bite

In her first work to be translated into English (by Pablo Strauss), Québec City-based poet, short story writer and novelist Mireille Gagné explores ecological and biological horror in the novella Horsefly. This slim eco-thriller is split into three perspectives. The first follows entomologist Thomas in 1942, recruited by the Allied forces to test and develop biological weapons which could be spread by insects. He and other scientists are isolated on Grosse Île, a remote island in the St. Lawrence River. In the same region of Québec, in 2024, lives Theodore, a somewhat shiftless young factory worker raised by his strict and emotionally distant grandfather Émeril. Theodore lives near the care home where Émeril is mistreated by the staff. News reports hint at a heatwave all across Québec that seems to coincide with a sharp spike in violence and inexplicable flights of rage. Emilie Dumais photo Mireille Gagné's latest was initially published in French in 2024 as Frappabord. The third perspective is the first-person (or insect) point of view of a female horsefly who carefully stalks Theodore and knows how this young man, his grandfather and the heatwave are connected to Thomas and the experiments carried out in 1942. After being bitten by the horsefly, Theodore becomes more impulsive and less apathetic, breaking Émeril out of the care home and taking him to the remote island where he once worked as a caretaker at a secret army base. Émeril's worsening dementia means he is often unable to tell the difference between the current moment and memories, and he begins to share memories that were never supposed to surface. The sections narrated by the horsefly are short and sweet, mainly concerned with setting the atmosphere. The fly is a sensual creature; its sections are consumed with the sweaty, bloody and vaguely erotic focus on biting Theodore and consuming his blood. This brevity works well and sets an ominous tone for the longer, more narrative-focused sections. A tight focus is used again when the narrative follows Thomas in 1942. Isolated not only on the remote Grosse Île army base, he is also forbidden from discussing his research with the other scientists, as they are forbidden such discussions with him. Tasked with finding an appropriate vector to spread anthrax, Thomas becomes fixated on a particular species of horsefly which breeds in the St. Lawrence. The flies are particularly aggressive and abundant on the island, making them the perfect specimen for his experiments. But the flies' persistence and numbers make them effectively unmanageable, bringing great risk to everyone at the facility. Theodore's sections are similarly compartmentalized and narrow in their scope, focusing purely on him and his small apartment and his spot on factory floor, branching out slightly once he takes Émeril from the care home, but the focus is less effective in this instance. Theodore's narrative is peppered with radio and news snippets describing a growing outbreak of rage and violence across Québec. While this would normally raise the stakes, the novella maintains a narrative distance from the outbreak, which is the main threat of the plot. While post-apocalyptic narratives often tighten their focus to individual stories to show the individual consequences of the larger scale happening, in Horsefly the threat to the world remains too vague to feel threatening. While there is some revelation concerning the flies and Thomas's research which remains grounded in realism, the nebulous 'rage virus' idea has been used before — in, for example, Danny Boyle's film 28 Days Later or Paul Tremblay's novel Survivor Song. Horsefly is certainly not a zombie novel – it's doing something quite different – but the parallel remains. Horsefly There's a fascinating idea at the core of Horsefly, but the tight and limited focus of the narrative keeps the dread off in the distance. It's certainly thought-provoking — the sections of Second World War-era Québec are a highlight — but readers expecting more horror may find this novella light on tension. Keith Cadieux is a Winnipeg writer and editor. His latest story collection Donner Parties and Other Anti-Social Gatherings is out now from At Bay Press. He also co-edited the horror anthology What Draws Us Near, published by Little Ghosts Books.