For six months, an Australian radio station aired a daily show hosted by a young-sounding woman named Thy—cheerful, confident, and always on beat—until listeners started asking: who is she?
Turns out, she’s not a person at all.
CADA, a Sydney-based station owned by Australian Radio Network (ARN), ran “Workdays with Thy” every weekday, with Thy introducing tracks and hosting music commentary for four hours a day. The station promoted her as a fresh voice curating the latest hits—but never mentioned that voice came from a machine.
Listeners grew suspicious. Thy had no last name, no biography, and no social presence. The station didn’t let its audience know she wasn’t real—until Sydney-based writer Stephanie Coombes began asking questions in a blog post.
“What’s Thy’s last name? Who is she? Where did she come from?” Coombes wrote. “There is no biography or further information about the woman who is supposedly presenting this show.”
It didn’t take long for internet sleuths to join in and put the pieces together.
Are AI Radio DJs Taking Over the Airwaves?
Eventually, ARN came clean. Thy wasn’t real. She was an AI-generated voice cloned from an actual ARN employee, created in collaboration with ElevenLabs. “No mic, no studio, just code and vibes,” wrote ARN project leader Fayed Tohme in a now-deleted LinkedIn post.
The revelation sparked backlash. While there are no laws in Australia requiring radio stations to disclose the use of AI, many argued that CADA’s secrecy undermined listener trust. Teresa Lim, vice president of the Australian Association of Voice Actors, called the move deceptive.
“AI can be a powerful and positive tool in broadcasting if there are correct safeguards in place,” Lim wrote on LinkedIn. “Authenticity and truth are important for broadcast media. The public deserves to know the source of what’s being broadcast.”
Lim also pointed to a deeper issue of representation. As an Asian-Australian female voice actor, she was frustrated to learn Thy’s voice was modeled after an actual Asian woman working behind the scenes at ARN. “There are a limited number of Asian-Australian female presenters who are available for the job, so just give it to one of them,” she said. “Don’t take that opportunity away from a minority group who’s already struggling.”
In a statement, ARN said the trial was part of a global industry experiment: “We’ve been trialing AI audio tools on CADA, using the voice of Thy, an ARN team member. The trial has offered valuable insights.”
They added that the experience reinforced “the power of real personalities in driving compelling content.” Still, critics are calling for stricter rules—especially labeling laws—before AI becomes even harder to spot.
Because if a robot can blend in for half a year without anyone noticing, it might already be happening more than we think.
The post Radio Station Duped Audience and Secretly Used an AI Host for Six Months appeared first on VICE.
