Speaker 1: I learned about the story from a reporter named Elizabeth
Speaker 1: Hernandez at the Denver Post. She wrote this piece in
Speaker 1: August about a murder that supposedly happened in Littleton, Colorado.
Speaker 2: On July four, twenty fourteen, just before noon, the Littleton
Speaker 2: Police Department made a decisive move. Harrison, twenty one, a
Speaker 2: college student and part time bartender, had been living a
Speaker 2: life of turmoil and confusion. Harrison admitted to the police
Speaker 2: that he had been in a secret sexual relationship with
Speaker 2: his stepfather for the past two years.
Speaker 1: There was this YouTube channel that made this video and
Speaker 1: it was a pretty wild case.
Speaker 2: Welcome to True Crime Case Files. Today we uncover the
Speaker 2: tragic and complex story of Richard Engelbert, a successful real
Speaker 2: estate agent who's hidden life and secrets led to his
Speaker 2: brutal murder.
Speaker 1: And Elizabeth Hernandez, her editor, told her about these emails
Speaker 1: that the newsroom have been receiving, all linking to this video,
Speaker 1: all talking about this weird murder. And her editor said,
Speaker 1: this seems like it's a story made for you. And
Speaker 1: she read these emails and there were some that just
Speaker 1: said you should check out this video. This is weird.
Speaker 1: But there were others that were mad at the Denver
Speaker 1: posts that were saying, why aren't you covering this? How
Speaker 1: could you miss such a big, horrific case.
Speaker 3: It makes sense that people would be upset. This video
Speaker 3: had been seen almost two million times, and frankly, it
Speaker 3: was embarrassing that the story of Richard Engelbert, this grizzly
Speaker 3: murder hadn't been covered by the local paper. How is
Speaker 3: it that an independent YouTube channel was doing a better
Speaker 3: job of doing an investigation than professional reporters. Well there
Speaker 3: was a reason.
Speaker 1: It was pretty quickly clear that the story was made up,
Speaker 1: that was invented using AI, and that no such murder
Speaker 1: had ever happened.
Speaker 3: I talked to Henry Larson, who wrote about this not
Speaker 3: so true true crime phenomenon for FO for Media.
Speaker 1: My name is Henry Larson. I'm a reporter and I
Speaker 1: cover typically criminal justice. This is not that at all,
Speaker 1: so much weirder story about fake crimes.
Speaker 3: The channel was called True Crime Case Files and it
Speaker 3: had about one hundred thousand subscribers and tons of videos.
Speaker 1: The channel itself seemed to have been making dozens and
Speaker 1: dozens of similar fake crimes, pumping them out, and it
Speaker 1: seemed like people were buying into these fake crimes thinking
Speaker 1: they were real.
Speaker 3: I'm afraid Kaleidoscope and iHeart podcasts. This is kill Switch,
Speaker 3: I'm Dexter Thomas, I'm.
Speaker 4: Goodbye.
Speaker 3: Henry started looking at the YouTube channel and he noticed something.
Speaker 1: A lot of videos on the channel were pretty perverse sexualized.
Speaker 3: Then again, so are a lot of true crime stories.
Speaker 3: These ones just always had a particular extra element of drama.
Speaker 1: That would usually have something to do with someone in
Speaker 1: a position of power murdering or taking advantage of someone
Speaker 1: who had less power than them, like a sheriff and
Speaker 1: the secretary, or a teacher and a student, a parent
Speaker 1: and their stepchild.
Speaker 3: There were dozens of story with that same setup, and
Speaker 3: just as an example, let me red you some of
Speaker 3: these titles here. So one of them goes judge beats
Speaker 3: college student to death after secret gay affair ends in scandal.
Speaker 3: Then couple's wife swap experiment ends in obsession and brutal murders,
Speaker 3: or cheating husband murder's loyal wife and claims he was
Speaker 3: on an acid trip. And then of course there's the
Speaker 3: one the reporter of the dever posts got the emails
Speaker 3: about husband's secret gay love affair, with step son, ends
Speaker 3: in grizzly murder, and whatever you're imagining the story is like,
Speaker 3: you're probably right.
Speaker 1: I will say that they got progressively more scandalous click
Speaker 1: baity sexual over time. When this channel first started making
Speaker 1: these videos, they were a little tamer.
Speaker 3: The video of the went viral and alerted the Denver
Speaker 3: Post to this fake channel was definitely from the era
Speaker 3: after the channel had gotten much more scandalous. It told
Speaker 3: the story of Richard Engelbert, a real estate agent who
Speaker 3: lived a seemingly perfect life but was having a secret
Speaker 3: sexual affair with his step son.
Speaker 2: Richard kept this relationship hidden from everyone, fearing it would
Speaker 2: ruin his reputation and career. In addition to this, he
Speaker 2: continued to meet other men for sex through his work,
Speaker 2: using the homes he showed as secret meeting places.
Speaker 3: The whole crime took place in Littleton, Colorado, and the
Speaker 3: video showed pictures of these generic looking rows of suburban homes,
Speaker 3: and for anyone who actually lived there, it was obvious
Speaker 3: that this was not Lyttleton, but for people who don't
Speaker 3: live there, it might have been convincing. All these videos
Speaker 3: look kind of like a lower budget version of something
Speaker 3: you might see on the Hallmark channel. They're usually around
Speaker 3: twenty five minutes long. They're narrated by a host with
Speaker 3: this authoritative radio voice, and there's photos of suburban living rooms,
Speaker 3: and then there's the setup. It introduces the victim or
Speaker 3: the witnesses or the perpetrator with a plausible looking photograph.
Speaker 3: You'll see a smiling businessman with a blue suit and
Speaker 3: bleach white teeth, or an office worker with blonde hair
Speaker 3: and dangling earrings, and then it'll cut to a photo
Speaker 3: of police cars parked outside the crime scene. And stories
Speaker 3: are on par with a lot of true crime stuff
Speaker 3: you might see on TV. Was it obvious to you
Speaker 3: that this stuff was AI generated?
Speaker 1: It was pretty clear to me that the narrator was
Speaker 1: an AI generated voice, that the photos are very weird.
Speaker 1: Everyone had impeccable veneers in the headshots that were generated
Speaker 1: and looked very glossy and kind of plasticky, and so
Speaker 1: that made me initially think, oh, okay, this is pretty obvious, right,
Speaker 1: this has been AI generated. But then when you go
Speaker 1: in the comments, there might be a couple people who
Speaker 1: are raising of red flag saying I don't know about this.
Speaker 1: I can't find any information about this online, but they
Speaker 1: were drowned out by people finding specific details from the
Speaker 1: videos and saying, I can't believe that the police missed this,
Speaker 1: or I think that there is this theory that was overlooked,
Speaker 1: or here's this other comment I have about like a
Speaker 1: material fact that was presented in the video, and that
Speaker 1: at least to me, showed that people were buying into this,
Speaker 1: and combined with the people who are mad at the
Speaker 1: Denver Post for not reporting that story, makes me think
Speaker 1: that this was compelling to at least a fair amount
Speaker 1: of this channel's viewers. Generally, people were interacting with each
Speaker 1: other talking about the details of this fake case as
Speaker 1: if it was real.
Speaker 3: Okay, just the recap. The images look AI generated. The
Speaker 3: voice is also AI generated. Okay, it's fake and huh,
Speaker 3: people are falling for it. Not surprising. This is the
Speaker 3: Internet and that is where most of us would stop.
Speaker 3: We'd close the window and go back to white day.
Speaker 3: But Henry didn't do that. He kept digging.
Speaker 1: I got really intrigued about the kind of person that
Speaker 1: would make this video. So I found the contact email
Speaker 1: associated with the YouTube channel and I reached out.
Speaker 3: So hold on this person. They had just left their
Speaker 3: contact email just on their YouTube page.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they had a contact email.
Speaker 3: Not every YouTuber does that. That's actually kind of unusual.
Speaker 3: Why do you think they did that? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think, well, I guess I have the theory. I
Speaker 1: think a lot of the reason why these videos were
Speaker 1: being made by this person were because they wanted to
Speaker 1: be a filmmaker and get some attention.
Speaker 3: So Henry gave him some of that attention. Now, just
Speaker 3: a note in case you want to go and read
Speaker 3: about this. The guy behind the channel, his name is
Speaker 3: out there now if you want to look for it.
Speaker 3: But back when Henry wrote the article and when we
Speaker 3: did the interview, he was referring to him anonymously with
Speaker 3: the name Paul. So that's the name that you'll hear
Speaker 3: in this episode. So, yeah, what's his deal? Why did
Speaker 3: you start all this up? What did he tell you?
Speaker 1: He graduated from college right before the pandemic, and when
Speaker 1: the pandemic hit, he was living with his parents and together.
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of families did all sorts of
Speaker 1: traditions around this time. Paul and his family decided they
Speaker 1: were going to watch dateline together, okay, and they watched
Speaker 1: a lot of Dateline He told me he really didn't
Speaker 1: like the show all that much, but he taught himself
Speaker 1: the formula. He taught himself the process of the procedural
Speaker 1: true crime genre. Here's the characters, here's the Grizzly murder,
Speaker 1: and this lengthy investigation presenting each of the suspects in turn,
Speaker 1: and then eventually a trial and some resolution for the victims.
Speaker 1: This is also around the time that chat GPT is
Speaker 1: really rolling out publicly, and he watches there's like a
Speaker 1: twitch live stream of AI generated Seinfeld episodes.
Speaker 3: Hey, yvone, did you hear about that new restaurant around
Speaker 3: the corner? I remember that. Yeah, they're supposed to have
Speaker 3: the best food in town. Yeah, I forgot all about that.
Speaker 4: I heard they just opened up, and I'm dying to
Speaker 4: try it, but it looks so expensive. Maybe we can
Speaker 4: make a deal with the owner, you know, trade them
Speaker 4: some of our jokes for a free meal.
Speaker 1: He loved it real, he got really interesting. He was like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is the thing. This is weird and new and
Speaker 1: probably cost nothing to make.
Speaker 3: So Paul decides to try his hand at AI generated content,
Speaker 3: but before he lands on true crime, he tries a
Speaker 3: different genre.
Speaker 5: First.
Speaker 1: He comes up with the bones of a plot for
Speaker 1: a four to five minute Hallmark style rom com. Crucially,
Speaker 1: he labels them as AI generated. He calls this channel
Speaker 1: AI Film Studio. He thinks they're very good. We disagree
Speaker 1: on that. I didn't think they were very good when
Speaker 1: I watch them.
Speaker 3: Did you tell him that?
Speaker 1: I asked him if he thought they were good, and
Speaker 1: he said yes, and I said okay, And they bomb.
Speaker 1: The videos do terribly that none of them cross over
Speaker 1: one hundred views, and so for some that might sort
Speaker 1: of been part a lesson that this technology isn't ready.
Speaker 1: There's something weird about this format. You need some more
Speaker 1: production value, even if you want to use AI in media.
Speaker 1: The lesson he learns is, don't tell people it's made
Speaker 1: from AI. Don't tell people's think.
Speaker 3: The other decision he makes is to focus on true crime,
Speaker 3: and in January of twenty twenty four, he starts the
Speaker 3: True Crime Case Files channel and he tests this idea
Speaker 3: he had that maybe one of the things that was
Speaker 3: holding him back was that he was telling people that
Speaker 3: these videos were AI generated. So he stops doing that.
Speaker 3: I mean, it turns out that maybe he wasn't wrong,
Speaker 3: because his videos started to take off after that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in all honesty, he was success. At least for
Speaker 1: a series of months. His channel was working. It was
Speaker 1: working so well that other people noticed and started copying
Speaker 1: his style, his formats, even the exact titles of some
Speaker 1: of his videos.
Speaker 3: And now you can find dozens of channels that are
Speaker 3: all posting similar fake true crime content. There's variations in
Speaker 3: different niches here and there, but it's all basically the
Speaker 3: same format, AI generated images accompanied by AI generated voices
Speaker 3: reading stories that are also probably AI generated.
Speaker 1: He saw himself at the forefront of this gold rush,
Speaker 1: this new medium of entertainment, and here he is experimenting,
Speaker 1: trying something, and so I think part of the allure
Speaker 1: of making AI films for him was the fact that
Speaker 1: it was AI, was the fact that this was a
Speaker 1: new technology. He told me he does consider himself to
Speaker 1: be a filmmaker, one without a studio or expensive production costs.
Speaker 3: Or in this case, I guess a camera.
Speaker 1: Or a camera, yeah, or a microphone.
Speaker 3: Okay, So how much of a gold rush are we talking?
Speaker 5: Though?
Speaker 3: It's a little hard to say. A few times Henry
Speaker 3: did try asking him how much he was making, but
Speaker 3: he couldn't get a straight answer.
Speaker 1: He never told me exactly how much money he made.
Speaker 1: I did learn that this was the only thing he
Speaker 1: was working on, and as far as I know, it
Speaker 1: was his only source of income.
Speaker 3: All right, let's just stick with the facts for a second.
Speaker 3: This is all fake and nobody's denying that the stories
Speaker 3: are made up. The voice isn't real, the images aren't real. Yes, people,
Speaker 3: a lot of people actually are being fooled. But does
Speaker 3: fake mean bad? Is there anything wrong with what he's
Speaker 3: doing here? We'll get into that after the break. So
Speaker 3: true crime. Listen, I don't know how you feel about
Speaker 3: true crime. I've got some feelings. I think a lot
Speaker 3: of people have some feelings about true crime. But let's
Speaker 3: be real, it is an extremely popular genre of I'm
Speaker 3: gonna say content. I'm gonna be as neutral as I
Speaker 3: can here. Not a fan personally, But why did he
Speaker 3: pick true crime? Do you think he.
Speaker 1: Picked true crime because he knew the format? But Paul
Speaker 1: has a lot of criticisms of true crime, and this
Speaker 1: was actually one of the reasons why he justified his work.
Speaker 1: He said, what I'm doing making these AI videos is
Speaker 1: actually better than real true crime.
Speaker 3: It's better.
Speaker 2: It's better.
Speaker 1: It's better because there's no real victims involved. He got
Speaker 1: to make his videos and his money and no one suffered.
Speaker 3: How did you feel about that?
Speaker 1: I thought he was wrong. I still think he's wrong,
Speaker 1: and I told him that. I mean, there's the reporter line,
Speaker 1: which is just injecting fake information into the world is bad.
Speaker 1: But there's also the component that true crime as a
Speaker 1: medium has plenty of flaws that are not just about
Speaker 1: the specific victim of a crime, but also our societal
Speaker 1: understandings of criminal justice in general. We turn on the
Speaker 1: evening news on our local TV broadcaster and it leads
Speaker 1: with a murder in a neighborhood near us, and we
Speaker 1: think that crime is going up, And we listen to
Speaker 1: a true crime podcast about a serial killer, and we're
Speaker 1: a little more nervous around our neighbors. And there's a
Speaker 1: real societal impact that a lot of researchers have looked
Speaker 1: into and analyzed about crime media impacting our perceptions of
Speaker 1: actual crime.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 1: So, I think his work in many ways was committing
Speaker 1: some of the same sins as the true crime genre
Speaker 1: in general.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: What you're talking about here is research essentially that shows
Speaker 3: it this stuff also makes us feel like your neighborhood
Speaker 3: is not safe, which is pro Your neighborhood's pretty safe.
Speaker 3: You live in the suburbs, You're fine, it's gonna be okay.
Speaker 3: But we watch a lot of this stuff, and if
Speaker 3: it's maybe fun to watch, you know when you just
Speaker 3: want to turn your brain off at the end of
Speaker 3: the day, which I think is what a lot of
Speaker 3: people do for true crime. Look, I get it, but
Speaker 3: in the back of your mind, it also makes you
Speaker 3: think that the world around you is more dangerous than
Speaker 3: it actually is, and what does that do to you?
Speaker 3: But Paul the AI True Crime creator, he had a
Speaker 3: different point of view on what he was doing.
Speaker 1: He said, what he was making is a form of
Speaker 1: abstract art. He really liked his structural touches that he
Speaker 1: would introduce into these videos, and at several points he
Speaker 1: basically said, you know, I make these stories so ludicrous,
Speaker 1: so insane that people should just assume that they're fake,
Speaker 1: that they didn't really happen, and if they don't get it,
Speaker 1: that's on that.
Speaker 3: Really it was so like in an absurdist art form.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he said what he's doing is absurdist start, and
Speaker 1: he doesn't regret any of it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean like his larger artistic message is lost
Speaker 5: on me because it sounds like complete BS.
Speaker 6: I was gonna say, I'm gonna call BS on the
Speaker 6: AI excuse.
Speaker 3: You might have been wondering what actual true crime podcasters
Speaker 3: think about all this stuff. Well you just heard from
Speaker 3: two of them. Hi. I am Bob Mauta and my
Speaker 3: name is Lauren brtcheck out. Bob used to be a
Speaker 3: defense attorney. Then he made a podcast telling the story
Speaker 3: of how his father defended the notorious serial killer John
Speaker 3: Wayne Gacy, and since then he's been a true crime podcaster.
Speaker 3: Lauren is a former television producer, but now she's focused
Speaker 3: on true crime audio. She produced the podcast Happy Face,
Speaker 3: which was about another serial killer, and that's been adapted
Speaker 3: to a show on Paramount Plus. The two of them
Speaker 3: work together on a true crime podcast called Murder on
Speaker 3: Songbird Road. But I think what be happening here, and
Speaker 3: I'm curious to hear what you think about this, is
Speaker 3: this may be exposing something about the audience for true crime.
Speaker 3: And I think this is one of the things that
Speaker 3: this person who who are calling Paul is you know
Speaker 3: this point he's trying to make, which he's saying, Well,
Speaker 3: the stuff that he's making, This AI generated stuff is
Speaker 3: actually better than real true crime because no actual victims
Speaker 3: are being exploited.
Speaker 6: That would work with the assumption that the intention of
Speaker 6: all true crime creators is to exploit victims. And that's
Speaker 6: the antithesis of my intention of Bob's intention. And I
Speaker 6: would ask Paul, since he has wrapped this very I
Speaker 6: think disingenuous scam up with the I'm teaching everybody a lesson, Bo,
Speaker 6: what he's doing with the profits?
Speaker 5: Mm hmm, Like are you are you are you sending
Speaker 5: all the proceeds LIKECTIMS organizations, Like are you doing good
Speaker 5: with it to teach your lesson? Or are you just
Speaker 5: using that as a convenient excuse as to why you're
Speaker 5: creating this stuff under the guys that it's actually real.
Speaker 5: But and look, I'm going to devils advocate on Paul's
Speaker 5: behalf here, true criminal defense attorney here. Yeah right, I mean,
Speaker 5: I can't help it. So in terms of I mean,
Speaker 5: there is a large chunk of creators out there in
Speaker 5: the true crime realm that they're they are just they're
Speaker 5: out there peddling the violence of the crimes. They are
Speaker 5: not taking into consideration the victims themselves, their families that
Speaker 5: have to live with these tragedies for generations beyond when
Speaker 5: the crime took place. They're merely just retelling a story
Speaker 5: that's not their story to tell, you know, and really
Speaker 5: in order to just make money and look like I
Speaker 5: have a lot of friends that do it, you know,
Speaker 5: that don't like there aren't deep divers that really just
Speaker 5: kind of sit there and reread. They'll watch a Discovery
Speaker 5: ID thing and they'll go right up an episode about
Speaker 5: it and just.
Speaker 6: Speak about it with authority.
Speaker 5: Right, you know. So it's like, I don't want to
Speaker 5: offend any of the people that do that out there,
Speaker 5: but I think that Paul might have a point as
Speaker 5: to those type of creators because what like, really, at
Speaker 5: the end of the day, what do they bringing to
Speaker 5: the table?
Speaker 3: I'm hearing YouTube really kind of distinguishing yourself from a
Speaker 3: lot of other people who make true crime podcasts, even
Speaker 3: though you all may you know, be situated in the
Speaker 3: same podcast in the listing right, even in the same genre.
Speaker 3: In this way, we could maybe think of what you
Speaker 3: two do as creating really carefully prepared organic meals. It's
Speaker 3: a lot of people who are very happy with a
Speaker 3: bag of Cheetos.
Speaker 6: I right.
Speaker 5: I mean, like a lot of people just do like
Speaker 5: kind of that pulp fiction quick hitter. I want to
Speaker 5: rip open that bag of Cheetos. I want to dive in.
Speaker 5: And it's arguably a much bigger market.
Speaker 3: But remember the Paul talked about his work as holding
Speaker 3: up a mirror to the industry of true crime, which
Speaker 3: I think is actually pretty interesting as a concept. You know,
Speaker 3: show the audience truly what it is that they're looking at.
Speaker 3: But that made me wonder about the response of that
Speaker 3: audience when he was talking about his work is absurdist art.
Speaker 3: He's got to be looking at the comments. He's seen
Speaker 3: the same comments you're seeing a lot of people. The majority,
Speaker 3: the bulk of the comments clearly are people who do
Speaker 3: not understand that this is fake.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in large part also because he would moderate his
Speaker 1: own comments and delete comments that would call him out
Speaker 1: for his lives.
Speaker 3: Did he tell you that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he said that he would go in and cut
Speaker 1: comments that were negative or said that what he was
Speaker 1: making was fake. He didn't get all of them, but
Speaker 1: he said that he would try and get as many
Speaker 1: as he could.
Speaker 3: Yo, hold on, Okay, I'm sorry man. So at that point,
Speaker 3: saying it's on you. If you don't get it, you
Speaker 3: are manufacturing something that's fake, and you're also manufacturing an
Speaker 3: echo chamber of other people of basically social proof. You know,
Speaker 3: it's like walking into a room and everybody says, wow,
Speaker 3: look at this amazing thing. You think, well, everybody else
Speaker 3: thinks this thing is amazing. I suppose if I think
Speaker 3: it's not amazing, something's probably wrong with me. So if
Speaker 3: you watch the video, look at the comments, everybody else
Speaker 3: seems to think it's real, You're gonna feel kind of
Speaker 3: weird if you don't also go along with that. Also, like,
Speaker 3: maybe it's just me. Everybody else seems to think it's real. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's incredible. So I don't know about you, but maybe
Speaker 3: this does change things a little. Are we trying to
Speaker 3: alert people to the danger of harmful entertainment or we
Speaker 3: just trying to make money or are those two things
Speaker 3: totally compatible. Maybe it's just recognizing that people wanted cheetos,
Speaker 3: and Paul figured out that he could provide people with
Speaker 3: those cheetos really easily, really quickly, and in massive quantities.
Speaker 3: He started picking up the pace, and he was publishing
Speaker 3: videos every day or so. Before long, he put out
Speaker 3: over one hundred and fifty of these things and people
Speaker 3: were watching these. Some people are being fooled. But what
Speaker 3: if some people don't care? If the people just want
Speaker 3: Paul's Cheetos? Is that so bad?
Speaker 6: I'll go further with that metaphor. You are what you eat?
Speaker 6: And are you putting ideas out there into the world.
Speaker 6: Are you having an overspill into real life in which
Speaker 6: these crimes could become real?
Speaker 3: I mean, if I'm picking up what you're saying here,
Speaker 3: do you think that there's some worry that this AI
Speaker 3: generated stuff becoming more prevalent, which it's getting more and
Speaker 3: more salacious, the details get more and more outlandish, more
Speaker 3: and more silacious, but also seem to get more listens,
Speaker 3: more views, more clicks. That this could start to affect
Speaker 3: how people perceive action cases or even just the news
Speaker 3: and give them ideas.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, what's to say that AI created you know,
Speaker 5: true crime isn't going to come up with concepts of
Speaker 5: ways to really effectively evade.
Speaker 6: You know, I'll tell you another issue that I have
Speaker 6: with it. If you're leaning heavily into sensationalizing what you
Speaker 6: are claiming is real trauma suffered by real people, but
Speaker 6: it's all fake and all made up. You are pulling
Speaker 6: out emotion and concern from real people. And when you
Speaker 6: are exhausting that reservoir, they're going to have a lot
Speaker 6: less capacity to care about real trauma and crime for
Speaker 6: other people.
Speaker 3: So and that's a real thing.
Speaker 5: That's a real thing. I mean, we see it especially
Speaker 5: in what we do Dexter in terms of people become
Speaker 5: emotionally invested in cases.
Speaker 6: And I think it's kind of like one of the
Speaker 6: unforeseen side effects of botox that has been studied extensively
Speaker 6: is that when people have been doing it for a
Speaker 6: period of time, they lose their ability to be empathetic
Speaker 6: because when you're listening to somebody in real time, we
Speaker 6: don't realize how much our face is mimicking that person's emotions,
Speaker 6: and that gives us the empathy.
Speaker 3: That is how wild.
Speaker 5: I had not heard that.
Speaker 3: It makes sense though.
Speaker 6: But now just take that and put that over AI
Speaker 6: true crime. It will ultimately be the same thing. We'll
Speaker 6: stop caring about these cases.
Speaker 3: So what now, have we become too addicted to junk food?
Speaker 7: Kind?
Speaker 3: Can we or can the platforms do anything about all this?
Speaker 3: That's after the break the channel had around one hundred
Speaker 3: thousand subscribers and across the videos millions of views. It's
Speaker 3: made Henry wonder he might not like this, but was
Speaker 3: Paul actually doing anything against YouTube's policies? So he contacted
Speaker 3: YouTube and asked them, so you head up YouTube, and
Speaker 3: YouTube nuked hiss channel essentially, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Not only that channel, but another three or four that
Speaker 1: he also had.
Speaker 3: What was the reason that they gave for pulling these
Speaker 3: channels down?
Speaker 1: YouTube told me in an email they said that Paul's
Speaker 1: videos had violated YouTube's policies around child safety, particularly their
Speaker 1: policy and child sexual exploitation.
Speaker 3: So not about AI.
Speaker 1: No, No, he wasn't violating any of YouTube's policies around AI.
Speaker 3: And even though this channel was taken off of YouTube,
Speaker 3: you can still find it on other platforms. He's still
Speaker 3: making this stuff, clearly because it's on Spotify. I found
Speaker 3: it on Amazon Music, all the platform channels that I
Speaker 3: look for, it's on there too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he has an RSS feed and a podcast player
Speaker 1: and he's still generating these true crime stories. Also, they're
Speaker 1: selling ads ads on all of these yeah, for hummus
Speaker 1: and universities and all sorts of weird stuff. So he's
Speaker 1: still clearly making money.
Speaker 3: So again, YouTube takes down the channel because they say
Speaker 3: it violated child safety policies, not because it was fake,
Speaker 3: and Spotify doesn't really seem to care that it's fake
Speaker 3: or that it's explicit. So for now, there's not really
Speaker 3: any reason for this stuff to stop.
Speaker 1: True crime is really popular and people love it, and
Speaker 1: so of course there's going to be ripoffs and parodies
Speaker 1: and scams associated with it. It's just the world we
Speaker 1: live in now, I think.
Speaker 7: So if you want to know how to make a
Speaker 7: true crime case story video that will go viral, then
Speaker 7: you are in luck because hey, there, and how are
Speaker 7: you doing?
Speaker 3: And now there are tutorials on how to make this stuff.
Speaker 7: In this video, I am going to show you how
Speaker 7: you can create your own true crime story video and
Speaker 7: go viral. So are you excited? Well, let's dive right in.
Speaker 1: I mean, of course there are tutorials, right, of course,
Speaker 1: Pandora's box is now open, and there's really nothing to
Speaker 1: do except hope for a solar flare, right, That's what
Speaker 1: I'm my fingers are crossed for.
Speaker 3: I mean, at this point, just bring the asteroid man,
Speaker 3: because I don't know what we're gonna do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's just clear all the satellites from orbit and
Speaker 1: start fresh. And I don't know, maybe someone will cut
Speaker 1: all the undersea telecoms cables and we'll be good that.
Speaker 3: I mean, that might be it. At this point, I'm
Speaker 3: going to refrain from saying kill switch. I'm going to
Speaker 3: refrain from saying that because that would be too corny.
Speaker 3: So you spent months reporting on this, What is your
Speaker 3: takeaway from this?
Speaker 1: There's a couple I think the very boring reporter in
Speaker 1: me is like, you know, truth matter is more than
Speaker 1: ever right, and misinformation is bad. But of course we
Speaker 1: all know that. I think we have to ask ourselves
Speaker 1: why we get interested in the media we consume. I
Speaker 1: think that's a really important part of being a consumer
Speaker 1: in an age where we have so much to choose from,
Speaker 1: there's so much more of our media diet that's completely
Speaker 1: in our own hands, and we can totally screw ourselves
Speaker 1: over if we let ourselves.
Speaker 3: I would imagine that there are some people who will
Speaker 3: continuing to listen to Paul's podcasts who know that it's
Speaker 3: fake and who don't care because it's good enough for them.
Speaker 3: And not only is it good enough for them. We's
Speaker 3: escalated to something, to a level that Netflix is not
Speaker 3: going to give them because the source material doesn't exist.
Speaker 3: There isn't a husband who is secretly gay who ca
Speaker 3: his wife on a cruise that happens every week. There
Speaker 3: is not a trans person who crosses state lines to
Speaker 3: participate in some drug ring or something like that every
Speaker 3: single week. It's not possible, but AI does make it possible.
Speaker 3: And maybe that's where we are. Maybe we've gotten so
Speaker 3: addicted to true crime that we we there are people
Speaker 3: who want the fake stuff. This is something Bob also
Speaker 3: brought up.
Speaker 5: I mean, I think at some point people are gonna
Speaker 5: become like it, Like more and more people are listening
Speaker 5: to it, and they're they're going in or do the
Speaker 5: guys as if it happened, And then when they come
Speaker 5: to realize that it didn't, they're going to be upset.
Speaker 5: But then the question becomes the next time it comes up,
Speaker 5: they be like, well, I know now that it's fake,
Speaker 5: but it was still pretty good.
Speaker 7: Again.
Speaker 3: Look when I when I open a bag of Cheetos,
Speaker 3: I know what I'm in for. Right, And Bob and
Speaker 3: Lauren are also worried about some other real life effects.
Speaker 5: I've got the distinct fear about how it's going to
Speaker 5: add actually move into the criminal justice system, because it's
Speaker 5: only a matter of time before they're able to use
Speaker 5: these same type of programs in terms of creating imagery
Speaker 5: where they're going to be able to bring false evidence
Speaker 5: into cases, like there is nothing stopping somebody from saying, yeah,
Speaker 5: I have a recording of a phone call wherein this
Speaker 5: person just confessed. I mean, the thought of what could
Speaker 5: be in the very very near future is terrifying on
Speaker 5: an entirely different level than in terms of just the
Speaker 5: fact that it's able to create out of whole cloth
Speaker 5: things that don't even exist and make it seem as
Speaker 5: if they do.
Speaker 6: You know, we're seeing it on the political stage right now,
Speaker 6: and so we are gradually becoming more and more comfortable
Speaker 6: with accepting ai.
Speaker 3: AI generated evidence being used in a courtroom. I hope
Speaker 3: we never have to do an episode about that, but honestly,
Speaker 3: at this point, man, give it a couple months, but
Speaker 3: I think what we're starting to learn is that there
Speaker 3: is a segment of the population that knows what they're
Speaker 3: getting is fake and they don't care. Maybe you personally
Speaker 3: are okay with the chat GBT filters that can redraw
Speaker 3: your picture as a Simpsons character, or you're cool with
Speaker 3: the audio generation engines that can turn your lyrics into
Speaker 3: a pop song or a mariachi song or a rap song.
Speaker 3: Maybe you personally draw the line at simulated approximations of
Speaker 3: people being murdered, but we should acknowledge that these are
Speaker 3: all uses for the same technology. Thank you so much
Speaker 3: for listening to kill Switch. You can hit us up
Speaker 3: at kill Switch at Kaleidoscope dot NYC with any of
Speaker 3: your thoughts, or you can hit me personally at dex
Speaker 3: digi that's d e x d i GI on Instagram
Speaker 3: or blue Sky if that's more your think. And if
Speaker 3: you liked the episode, hopefully you did. If you're on
Speaker 3: Apple Podcasts or Spotify, you know, take that phone out
Speaker 3: of that pocket and leave us a review. It really
Speaker 3: does help people find the show, which in turn helps
Speaker 3: us keep doing our thing. Kill Switch is hosted by Me,
Speaker 3: Dexter Thomas. It's produced by Shena Ozaki, darl Of Potts,
Speaker 3: and Kate Osborne. A theme song was written by me
Speaker 3: and Kyle Murdoch, and Kyle also mixed the show from
Speaker 3: Kaleidoscope Our executive producers are Oswallashin, mangesh Hati Gadur and
Speaker 3: Kate Osborne. From iHeart our executive producers our Katrina Norvil
Speaker 3: and Nikki Etour. We'll catch you on the next one.