For months, callers to the Washington state Department of Licensing who have requested automated service in Spanish have instead heard an AI voice speaking English in a strong Spanish accent. The agency has since apologized and says it’s trying to fix the problem.
AI is putting threatening to put The Onion out of business, not because The Onion articles can be written by AI, rather AI has just made this kind of satire nearly obsolete. The Onion is forced to retreat into existential screaming into the void humor, which they have done magnificently in the face of an unstoppable foe. The Onion will prevail and outlive AI though, mark my words!
I think you can hear an example here: https://www.spokanepublicradio.org/regional-news/2026-02-26/couple-asks-wa-dol-for-spanish-speaker-and-gets-a-recording-in-accented-english-instead
PLEASE PRESS UNO
Cue Chris Farley translating “el niño”
https://youtu.be/H0-pHnykC9s
🤣 priceless!
You know there are vibe coders who don’t even try to run the code before uploading it. Apparently, those very same people make phone services too. Just do everything with AI, and ship it without checking anything at all. Full steam ahead, never look back.
And they get paid the same amount as normal developers. And probably get paid to fix all the mistakes they make.
I couldn’t see anything there (but it sounds like some could) - anyone else has problems, try this one - it’s in the latter half: https://www.tiktok.com/@maya_maybee/video/7608347117161041183
Ah, man… I know it’s a screwup and it’s just hilarious.
That doesn’t sound like an AI voice in that it used generative AI. It sounds like someone just fed the English into a Hispanic voice on a regular text to speech engine. I could be wrong though.
Or maybe somebody wrote an AI prompt that said “hey make this voice file sound Spanish”.
Thanks for the link.