119: How to Use ChatGPT and AI for Your Podcast without Losing Your Voice
I’m tackling a topic I’ve been hesitant to approach… artificial intelligence (AI)! As an artist, I know the importance of supporting art and their creators, but I also understand the need to adopt new tools as industries change and grow.
Today, I’m sharing the ways I’ve started experimenting with AI and chatGPT with my own podcast while maintaining my own authentic voice, as well as a few thoughts to consider when adding AI into your own podcast workflow. I’m also discussing a recently published article that highlights the important topic of copyright when it comes to AI. Let’s dive in!
Why I initially had reservations about using AI and chatGPT for my podcast
As I mentioned above, I started my career as an artist and using tools that feel like they could make me irrelevant as an artist or editor is really uncomfortable. On the other hand, at WHP we’re constantly looking for ways to make our work more efficient and more effective for our clients, and if AI tools allow us to do that, we should try them out. And at the end of the day, AI is not going to be able to replace our judgment, our attention to detail, and the authentic human element that we infuse into our work, and we shouldn’t be afraid to try new tools that can allow us more freedom to express those other qualities.
Some pros and cons I discovered while using AI to aid with my podcast production
While playing around with sentences in ChatGPT, I found the most useful application of the tool was coming up with interesting brainstorming phrases for episodes, titles, and even Instagram captions. Did it give me exactly what I would write down? Definitely not. Did it give me ideas of how I wanted to phrase things better and think about how I would word my ideas? Yes! It was a definite pro to having another “person” to talk out my ideas with and helped me process more thoughts.
The downside of using AI is, unsurprisingly, that ChatGPT does not capture our voice here at Wild Home Podcasting. The answers sounded more like the stereotypical male podcaster, which was an interesting insight, and not the vibe we’re going for at WHP. Perhaps changing the tone as part of my ChatGPT session would have helped, but it wasn’t necessary for my needs for an ideas backboard.
Why AI is a sticky area when it comes to copyright and content ownership
AI is a gray area for many industries right now because there is no formal line. It’s a tool to help, and a tool that can over-help. We use AI here at Wild Home Podcast for our transcriptions and for some editing through a program called Descript. In May, Descript sent out an article
entitled “Can you copyright the content you make with generative AI?” This was the discussion of the recent US Copyright Office’s decision that nothing made with artificial intelligence (including chatGPT) is able to have a copyright, whether it is audio, art, or writing. For us podcast producers, this means that any sort of dialogue, IG caption, or even graphics made exclusively by AI is not ours.
How do we guarantee ownership then? It’s simple: we write everything in our own words. From our podcast episodes to our tweets to our audio, we focus our creative juices to create our own content. More importantly, by doing this, we ensure that we do not lose our voice in the innovative process in an effort to make a deadline. We stay consistent with our content by instilling our own voice in everything we produce, even if we use AI to help us brainstorm the topic we discussed.
Some ways that I would –and wouldn’t – use AI for podcast production
There are a number of reasons I would use AI in the stages of podcasting. I like using it for titles, episode ideas, rough drafts, transcripts, social captions, and brainstorming. These are all parts of the production where we can take over the creative process more as the parts develop.
I do not recommend using AI, like ChatGPT, to write whole show notes, episode scripts, or anything you want to maintain copyright over. It may not be an issue now, but it could become one. More important than a copyright issue, you want to maintain your voice. Your podcast is part of your outlet for your business and your passion, and that dedication cannot be replaced! All of your materials should be from you, and you do not sound like a robot.
Why I’m excited about AI, but still hesitant about it in certain applications
Podcasting is benefiting from so many innovations! I’m excited that AI can help make us more efficient, can help generate transcripts instead of manual typing, is really great for people to be DIYers in podcasts and social media, and helps us generate achievable ideas.
I’m still hesitant about how AI could disrupt the creative process. Don’t let it lead your business; you must trust your instincts about what works for your podcast and business. Try not to rely on it to create aligned content for you; that comes with planning and your own personal authority on your products and business matters. Finally, don’t rely on it to tell you what your clients want! Personal interactions and relationships can never be replaced by robots. The best ideas I’ve had come from talking with clients, and they help reignite my passion for podcasting every time we dive into a meeting.
The introduction of ChatGPT in podcasting is a helpful tool, and could be a way to keep consistency in podcasting, especially during the summer months. Ultimately, nothing replaces our own words, not even AI. To continue having success in podcasting, there is no shortcut. There is only devotion to your craft, a willingness to work smarter (not harder!), and a dedication to keep developing your own voice.
Are you looking for a partner who can help you add a little bit of humanity back into your podcast to create deeper and more meaningful connections? Check out our Podcast Strategy Intensive, where we help you focus your content and get the most out of your small business podcast, or sign up for a Podcast Refresh, where we help you strategize and then implement all the great ideas we come up with together!
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Descript- Can you copyright the content you make with generative AI?
Ep. 116: How Mapping Your Customer Path Will Improve Your Podcast & Business
Ep. 117: How to Take a Summer Break without Losing Momentum in Your Podcast
Ep. 83: What It Means to Be Wildly Authentic in Your Podcast
Ep. 60: Stop Underutilizing This Essential Podcast Tool: Show Notes
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The Transcript for Podcast Your Business:
119: How to Use ChatGPT and AI for Your Podcast without Losing Your Voice
[00:00:00] Caroline Hull One of the things that we talk about a lot is how important it is that your personality is shining through in your podcast content. And you can do this a number of ways. Maybe there are certain things that you say you got an idea of who I am by listening to this podcast, not just what I think about podcast strategy, but also who I am as a person. The things that I value, the things that I think are funny, things that I say. And so when we talk about rewriting things in your own voice, that's exactly what I mean, is taking something and turning it into yours and editing the ideas, right? So I'm not going to go to chatGPT and have it tell me something completely new that I'm going to start utilizing in my business.
[00:00:50] Are you ready to start a strategic podcast for your business and share your message in a way that feels wildly authentic? This is the place. Welcome to Podcast Your Business, where each week I share the strategy behind having a podcast that helps grow your business. I'm Caroline Hull, podcast manager, strategist and consultant, and I've seen the power of podcasts can have for your business. Let's get started.
[00:01:20] Hi everyone, Welcome back to Podcast Your Business. And today I am finally tackling the topic that everybody is talking about and that is AI. And one thing I want to really talk about with AI is how you can use it, but not lose your voice in the process as a podcaster. And I want to share a little bit about my thoughts on AI, some research I've done and some ways that you can use it, some tools that we like. And so let's dive in. I have been avoiding AI for a while, and I think a lot of this came from my artist background. I used to design stationery and I know how important artwork is and how special it is that there are people out there who create it. So like my first impression of AI, when everybody started posting those like AI generated images and artwork was-- this is a really not so good. I didn't, I didn't like it because it just bothered me. It felt like it was undermining artists in a way. And I'm just sharing my thoughts. This is not at all, you know what AI is, but this is just how it rubbed me the wrong way when it first came about. We've had some versions of AI out there, such as like transcription services and things like that, but it never really occurred to me that one day people would be inputting information into something and it would be regurgitating whole episodes or whole podcast episodes to them, whole papers for college, for school.
[00:02:58] And it just seemed like when AI started blowing up that that's what we were seeing a lot of was this misuse of it and this really like push and pull of like, what is our relationship with AI? How should we use it, what's appropriate? You know, I just really felt like that conversation was more than I could handle at the moment. And so I haven't really done a lot of experimenting with AI up until this point. And so I started feeling really old, to be honest. I felt like the little old lady sitting on the porch. Those kids nowadays with their AI, you know, and I definitely have a very purist view of like the Internet and technology and why everyone's jobs are so important. And so I could feel that coming out of me in conversations I was having with clients and my own team. And I was like, Whoa, Nelly, like back up, old lady. No, no ageism here. Just, you know, I'm about to be 40. And so sometimes I catch myself feeling a lot older than I have before. And I decided, okay, we should really try some of this stuff or we're going to get left behind. So my very first foray into AI was, I was, I think, working on like an Instagram caption or something. And I thought, this is a really great chatGPT moment, because that's what I see everybody talking about.
[00:04:23] And I had looked at it once. I literally had looked at it and said, This doesn't mean anything to me and clicked off of it. And so I said, okay, I'm gonna dive in, I'm going to try it out. And I was honestly amazed at what came out of it. I think I used a prompt that was something like caption for Instagram about podcast strategy and it regurgitated some stuff. Now none of it was caption worthy, but it was real fascinating to me that I could say podcast strategy and it would create these things that were in a little bit more detail than I anticipated. So, okay, Caroline started to see like there is a place for chat GPT in my world, so I haven't used it a ton and I'll share a little bit more about how I've used it and how I think you should use it for your podcast. Or you could use it, but I was pretty impressed, I must say. You know, color me impressed because I was not expecting that. And when I did try it that first time, it was like, okay, I can see a lot of uses for this. I can see how it would be used.
[00:05:31] So then a couple of weeks later, I was working on a podcast episode and I was stuck on some ideas. I just needed some idea generation and I thought, Oh, I'm going to try a chatGPT I've heard people talk about using it for that, so pulled it up, I asked it to script out a podcast episode for me. And you know what? It did. Now I had a choice. I could record my podcast episode from my perspective, maybe take some of that as a suggestion, or I could read the script. And let me tell you right now, if I had read the script, you would have gotten a completely different podcast episode. Dare I say, it would have been definitely from a different viewpoint than mine. That very like typical masculine podcast energy that we see in the podcast world, that's what it spit out and that's not what we do here at Wild Home Podcasting. So I read through it and I took a few suggestions and I said, Yeah, there might be something here, but it really did not complete the mission for me, right? Like it didn't do what I needed it to do, which was create an episode. It definitely was really great for creating suggestions and helping me brainstorm.
[00:06:50] So that's where I want to talk about the good and the bad of. I think the good of AI is that it's really nice to have another- do I say brain?- Another something thinking to help me generate the tons of content that I'm generating every week, every month. I honestly like I don't use it every day. I've only use it a couple of times still, because I can get more from my conversations with my clients and interactions on social media than I can from chatGPT. As far as like ideas for my podcast and things like that go. But I definitely can see where it can be helpful. And I started to wonder about again that like moral dilemma that I'm having about A.I.. Is it okay to use it? Is it okay to have it? Help me generate ideas and brainstorm? And we started using a tool called descript, which if you're a podcaster, you've probably heard of it. And it's a completely like A.I. system for recording and editing. And I will say that we're not using it in its entirety, so I'll get to that for sure.
[00:08:06] But they actually sent out an email newsletter the same week that I was having this like, existential crisis about my relationship with A.I.. And it was a complete email about whether or not you own the content that is generated from A.I., And it's actually an article that they have on their website, and we're going to link to it in the show notes because I think it's a really, really important conversation to have and it's really, really important to read. So I guess there was some discussion at the Copyright Office and some court systems potentially there may be even something going all the way to the Supreme Court is what it says in the article. But there was some discussion about who owns the things created by A.I. and if you can copyright them. And it literally says like you can't copyright A.I. generated images, writing video or anything. And so if you create something that's made with A.I., people can reuse it, and there's apparently nothing you can do about it legally. I mean, that's something we really need to think about because if we are going to rely on this tool, right, because that's what it is, it's a tool to help us create content. We have to be really careful about how we use that content. So I guess this ruling came on a copyright application from somebody who used an AI generated image tool to create illustrations in a graphic novel.
[00:09:49] So it's really fascinating to me. I think, you know, we're always looking for ways to expedite our work, to make it faster, to make it better, to make it cleaner. And this is just a really good example of using it in its entirety for something and then having it not support you the way you wanted to. The truth is, is that there is a lot of wrestling that's going to have to happen over this, right, Because this is new territory. This is something new. And the thing about it is, is the Copyright Office and the Supreme Court, the court systems, you know, they can come up with a lot of things. Right. But the thing is, is that the words they use right now are like probably and likely, right? It's a long way from being settled. And so you really need to understand that if you're going to go into something like Chat GPT and you're going to have it generate a blog post for you and then post that blog post on your website, you do not own that content. According to this article. Which again, we're going to link it in the show notes. You can read it and I would love to hear your thoughts on it. I think for me, this makes a lot of sense because I don't own the AI that is creating the content that I'm using. And I think what we're talking about here is there's a fine line between having an idea and an expression of that idea. Right.
[00:11:24] I know that when we go into something like chatGPT, we are creating a prompt that is prompting the AI to do what it needs to do. But at the end of the day, all we're doing is giving it the idea. It's giving us back the things. And so I wanted this to be part of this episode today because I think it's really important. It can be very tempting to go on when you're having a rough week and you're behind on your episodes and have it generate an episode for you. But you have to understand that you do not own that episode. Whereas if you come up with the idea, you sit down, you record it yourself, you own that content. And I think that's a very, very important distinction we need to make. And I think it's a very, very important conversation that's going to continue to go on. And I think that this is something that we're going to have to figure out in the weeds. We're going to all be like trying to figure this out.
[00:12:20] Is your podcast Growing Your Business? And if you don't know the answer to this question or you think the answer might be no, it's time to take an audit. Your podcast can be so much more than a hobby. It can be a way for you to attract your ideal client and establish yourself as an authority. But you need a strategy, and the best place to start is with an audit. And I have a free guide that helps you perform an audit of your podcast, gives you my top tips for having a strategically aligned podcast and a playlist of podcast episodes. For more insight, you can head to Wild Home Podcasting dot com to download your free audit guide today.
[00:12:57] And so let's talk about then. Okay. If I don't own the content, how can I own the content? And the article ends with this idea, which actually is so brilliant and goes with what I wanted to talk about today because, again, chat GPT, descript, all of these things. These are tools for us to use to improve the work that we're already doing. And so I love chatGPT for idea generation. For brainstorming. I love it for helping me create titles. I love it for that kind of thing. I think sometimes when we are constantly creating, we can kind of get stuck in some modes with certain words or certain things that we say. And so it really is nice to get another perspective on that and not necessarily have to pull my entire team in to have a brainstorming session, but to literally just open chatGPT and say, I need a title for this podcast episode and it gives me some ideas. I am not going to use word for word what it gave me because those words are not my words.
[00:14:06] So again, think of AI as creating a rough draft for you. Or like a starting point. And then you are going to take that and rewrite it in your own voice. One of the things that we talk about a lot is how important it is that your personality is shining through in your podcast content. And you can do this a number of ways. Maybe there are certain things that you say, like, for instance, I'm pretty sure I said, Whoa, Nelly, at some point in this episode, which I'm going to regret in a few years because I really aged myself, but that's okay. You got an idea of who I am by listening to this podcast, not just what I think about podcast strategy, but also who I am as a person. The things that I value, the things that I think are funny, things that I say. And so when we talk about rewriting things in your own voice, that's exactly what I mean, is taking something and turning it into yours and editing the ideas, right? So I'm not going to go to GPT and have it tell me something completely new that I'm going to start utilizing and my business right. That makes no sense because everything that I'm doing has been tried. It's been proven, it's been worked on for years.
[00:15:26] And so the idea I would go into a tool like this and have it completely revolutionize my business, that just doesn't make sense to me because what's important to my business is my experience and the things that I have worked on to get to where I am, to get to the belief systems that I have, to get to how I work with clients. And so really using it, I think as a brainstorming tool, as an idea generator, I think those are really smart. And when it comes to your podcast, I think the ways that I have found the most useful since experimenting with it is generating ideas for an episode generating, like I said, some title ideas maybe, and I have used it to generate captions. It didn't really generate captions. It literally generated like a sentence per thought. But it was interesting to look at and be like, Oh, you know, I could go at something from that angle. Let me add it to my content brainstorming air-table base that I have, you know?
[00:16:29] And so I think those are the ways that makes a lot of sense for me to use it. I would not use it to write your show notes. This is a huge one for me because. I know some people are using it to write their shownotes notes and definitely again, like you can use it to kind of generate a start, a rough draft. But show notes really need to be written in a way that they speak to your audience. They tell them what they are going to get from the episode. It's not just an episode summary and it needs to have keywords. And so to me, having that human aspect is so, so key in writing show notes. I don't really see a scenario where we would ever use A.I. to write show notes for our business at all. I wouldn't even use them to write show notes for me personally, because I want it to sound like it came from a person. I want it to represent my brand and use the language that my brand uses, and I want it to feel really authentic. To use the A-word that we all talk about. And so to me that this doesn't make sense. I think what makes more sense than using A.I. to write Shownotes is having a really solid shownotes template that I can reuse again and again and again. And getting a transcript of my podcast, which could totally be done using AI and pulling from the transcript, which is already my words and my thoughts that I pulled together to create an episode and using that to write my shownotes. That's how I would use A.I. I think it's really important to think about. I think we kind of equate the difference of words and images, and we put them in a different category. To me, it's the same thing.
[00:18:16] So if you're using A.I. to generate images and you're using those in places and that's not your content, it makes so much sense to me that if you were using words that I generated, that's not your content either. And going back to, you know, we're seeing a lot of A.I. tools being developed for the podcasting industry specifically. And one of those, again, is Descript, which we recently started using. And I really actually kind of love it. It's fantastic. I'm recording into it right now and it's generating a transcript while I'm recording, which is pretty cool to watch. But it's made editing a lot easier for us because we're able to go through the transcripts before we content edit to look for the things that normally we have to sit and listen for. And so it's a tool. But you know what? If we just let the script edit the podcast episode, it may not sound exactly the way we want it to. It may take out too much filler words so that it doesn't sound conversational or like the speaker who's on the podcast. There may be sections that we need to cut and rework and we need to be able to do that in Adobe audition. We want a certain quality of audio and that needs to be achieved in other software.
[00:19:35] So again, it's a tool I think that if you are a DIYer, so somebody who is creating their podcast each week by themselves doing it themselves. All of these tools are so great to help you save some time and get a higher quality product at the end, but you are still going to have to put in the work just like we do. And that's important. It's the human element that is so key. It's bringing knowledge and wisdom and years of experience to something that you just cannot get from a computer generated whatever. And I'm sure somebody listening to this who is really excited about AI and believes in it and thinks it's going to like replace people at Jobs is listening to me and thinking, Oh, she's so romantic about it, but I have to be, I have to be romantic about it because I know too many online business owners who have worked really hard for years and years and years and who can write the pants off of chatGPT. Who can edit way better than the script ever could.
[00:20:42] But I do see how we can use these things as tools. And so it really is about maintaining, right? Maintaining and making sure that we are not losing our own voice in the process of using these tools, making sure that if we are using it to generate captions, that we're changing them to reflect our personality, our voice. If we are using it to generate ideas, not just using the ideas because the software generated it, what if it generates an idea that does not meet your customers where they are? That's not aligned content, right? And so we cannot just say, because I use this tool, I'm going to be successful. You still have to put in those cookie crumbs of yourself into everything in order for it to be yours. And in order for it to be a piece that you can actually use for marketing for your business. So I hope that this opens up some conversation. I think there's two sides to every coin, right? And I definitely feel that AI has that. I think there is good things and exciting things and I'm so excited to dive into chatGPT some more and hopefully create some tools for all of you eventually to use for your podcast with ChatGPT. I think the possibilities there are really, really exciting.
[00:22:11] But I also think the other side of it is like we cannot rely on it to speak for us. We cannot rely on it to know our clients an intimate way like we do. And we cannot rely on it to create super aligned content that's going to generate leads for us. So that's my soapbox. I don't know if people have been waiting to hear my thoughts on it, but I have been intentionally avoiding this conversation because I just I felt like it wasn't fully formulated and I felt like I didn't have much to say that was positive. But now that I have experienced a couple tools and we've used them consistently, I definitely think that there is a place for it. But we have to be super responsible about how we use it. And I'd love to hear how you've used it. If there is something that you're using that's really helping you with your business. I would love to hear it. And I mean, like one of my favorite things is transcripts. We've used AI for transcripts for a long time. And so, you know, we had to go in and edit them and clean them up. They weren't perfect. Right. And I guess well, in there, it's not perfect, but it is exciting.
[00:23:22] So send me a message. Let me know. How are you using chat in your podcast? I would love to talk more about this. I feel like there's so much to unpack and again, that article about copyright will be in the show notes and I highly recommend if you are using any AI anywhere in your business to go read it and educate yourself on what you own and what you don't own when you use AI and keep a lookout. We're hoping to, like I said, create some ways to use it for your podcasts in meaningful and accessible ways that make sense. And so I'm really excited to dive into that. Be sure to tune into next week's episode I am actually going to be doing on next week's episode an on-air strategy call. I'm really excited about it. Let me know what you think. And follow me on Instagram if you want to chat more. Have a great week.
[00:24:17] Thank you for listening to podcast Your Business. For more podcasting tips, follow us on Instagram at Wild Home Podcasting. If you're ready to launch up level or grow your podcast, head to WildHomePodcasting.com to get started today.
