Spotify: AI-generated personalized podcasts. The beginning of the end?

Music streaming platform Spotify is offering a new feature starting in June for Spotify Premium members in the United States: AI-powered personalized podcast generation. Podcasts created from a simple text prompt, in just seconds! Sony dreamed of it (via a patented concept), and Spotify has made it a reality. Users simply write a prompt (a teaser) describing the type of content they want to hear, and voilà, the podcast is generated. "You can create a daily briefing, an in-depth analysis of a topic that interests you, or a weekly recap of what's on your mind," explains Spotify. For example, ask: "Share my daily local news and tell me about concerts near me by artists I love" or "Help me understand economics in five minutes," and Spotify will create a personalized audio overview while suggesting relevant episodes, shows, and creators to delve deeper. Spotify wants to become the media player of the generative era. These podcasts can then be generated daily or weekly, with the option to choose a voice and refine the content by adding links or PDFs. "We are entering the generational era, where the experience is no longer simply chosen from a catalog," said Gustav Söderström, co-CEO of Spotify. It is shaped by each of our users, in real time, according to their tastes, context, and intentions… Today, there is no media player that combines both public and private content; in other words, there is no player adapted to the generative age. We believe Spotify will become that player.” In short, a useful advancement for all, or just another step towards robbing humanity of… its humanity?