Earth Notes: AI Promo Rap Style Video
Transcript...
[00:00][woman] My heat pump's pumping, my carbon's slumping...
[00:03][man] 'Cos that @Home podcast keeps the whole planet jumpin'!
More...
Show Notes
This was provoked in part by me preparing a lecture for undergrads on "sustainable technology", and all the AI (LLM) arguments currently raging...
Much of the current AI nonsense is oversold garbage generation, with the risk of creatives losing work, and the compute effort boiling the planet.
I have in the past made real promotion video (as part of a crowdfunder for a start-up) and know that there is no chance that EOU could afford the real deal with its revenue of pennies per day.
So is this a legitimate use of AI? I could not afford a creative human's input by orders of magnitude I suspect. (I have tried in the past to get help with hero images for pages, for example.)
Audogram is offering as of a free AI-powered podcast promo tool. I gave it a whirl.
The video creation process took something over a minute, and only 2 of my ~5 attempts were good enough (see the other below). So I probably did not boil even a small pond. But I stopped because I really do not want to be wasting unknown kWh on this.
Note that AI also helped with the (small, in this case) transcripts, in the form of Transcobble and its use of Whisper.
Transcript...
[00:00][woman] Darling, this podcast says we can save carbon
[00:02][woman] with something called a heat pump.
[00:03][man] A pump?
[00:05][man] Good heavens, Martha, the house isn't sinking.
2025-10-27: AI on the ethics of using AI
To recurse further down the hole, I asked Google's search 'AI Mode' Is it ethical to use an AI generated promo video for a green site?
for which the response was:
Using an AI-generated promo video for a green site is ethically complex, weighing benefits like efficiency and reduced physical production costs against serious concerns about transparency, bias, and authenticity. The decision is not a simple yes or no, but depends heavily on how the AI is used and the developer's commitment to ethical guidelines.
Potential ethical risks
- Lack of transparency: Using AI-generated content without clear disclosure is deceptive and erodes consumer trust. Audiences have a right to know if the content they are consuming was made by a human or a machine, especially when the message is about authenticity and the environment.
- Environmental hypocrisy: A green site using AI must acknowledge the significant environmental cost of the technology itself. AI training and operation require enormous amounts of energy and water, and the necessary data centers generate considerable electronic waste. Using AI to promote environmentalism without addressing this footprint can be seen as hypocritical.
- Algorithmic bias: AI is trained on data sets that can reflect existing societal biases, potentially leading to unfair or stereotypical representations. This could result in video content that misrepresents certain demographics or cultural groups, undermining the green site's mission of building a more equitable and sustainable world.
- Inauthenticity and "greenwashing": Because AI can generate compelling, but ultimately superficial, content, there is a risk of creating content that feels inauthentic or manipulative. This practice is sometimes referred to as "greenwashing," where a company overstates its commitment to sustainability to improve its image. A green site's credibility could be damaged if its audience suspects it is using AI as a shortcut to virtue signaling rather than demonstrating a genuine commitment to its cause.
- Job displacement: The use of AI can replace human artists, writers, and production crew members. For a green site, which may have a mission to support local and ethical production, replacing human workers with AI contradicts its own values and can harm the creative community.
How to use AI ethically for a green site
To ethically use AI for a green site, a comprehensive approach to transparency and responsibility is necessary.
- Implement full disclosure: Always use prominent, clear, and simple labels on the promo video indicating that it was generated with AI.
- Acknowledge and offset AI's environmental impact: Be transparent about the energy used to create the AI-generated video and take concrete steps to offset that carbon footprint, such as investing in renewable energy. This demonstrates a commitment to your principles.
- Ensure diverse data and human oversight: To prevent bias, use diverse training data and involve a diverse human team to oversee and review all AI outputs. Conduct regular audits to ensure fair representation in the content.
- Use AI for genuine enhancement, not replacement: Utilize AI as a tool to improve human-led creativity and research, not to replace it. The final creative decisions and reviews should always be made by a human team.
- Focus on unique, human-centric messaging: Prioritize storytelling that highlights authentic, human experiences with the green site's mission. Use AI for repetitive or data-driven tasks, such as creating different versions of a video for various ad platforms, rather than for the core creative concept.
By proactively addressing these ethical challenges, a green site can use AI to its advantage while upholding its core values and maintaining the trust of its audience.
About four source URLs were cited.