A sound, um, reason to be wary of AI

The shift to AI-editing tools for videos and podcasts is inevitable, but beware of the trade-offs and some very rough [cough] edits

- BARRY COLLINS

At university, part of my (much maligned) media degree involved going out on to the streets and interviewing people using tape recorders. Once we'd stuffed the tape with enough soundbites, it was back to the studio where we spent the next couple of hours splicing tape, cutting it with a knife at what you hoped was the exact moment between words, but frequently butchering them mid-syllable. I learnt a few new swear words on that job.

It was a tedious, fiddly, labour-intensive process that required enormous levels of patience and craft. The tutor could splice and stick these tapes back together to form a coherent piece of audio in minutes; it would take me hours. And by the time I'd completed my course, those skills were redundant. The world had gone digital. Nobody was cutting pieces of tape any more.

I got a sense of d déjà vu recently when chatting to Adobe about its professional audio software, Audition. I started editing podcasts (not the PC Pro podcast, I should add) a few years ago and largely taught myself how to use Audition. Now I don't need to spool a tape back and forth to find the place to make a cut; I zoom in and look for the gap in the waveform and make a precise edit. And if I make a cock-up, I can instantly Ctrl-Z my way out of it, not spend hours scrabbling around on a dusty floor looking for a half-inch of tape with the butchered syllable on it.