AI is a lot of things currently. It’s scary that it can replace jobs, but also captivating in how advanced it has become thanks to machine learning, training, and the ever-present question of sentience. That’s why I was skeptical when I first heard about ai_sponge, a Youtube channel that streams conversations between SpongeBob SquarePants characters in short intervals with eerily-accurate voice-to-text results. It’s been going strong all of June and has become a joy to throw on with several developments and even lore after dozens of hours of streams now in the wild.

The premise of ai_sponge is easy enough to grasp. One character talks, then another follows after a one-second delay, until the script completes. Then, you’ll see/hear “A few moments later,” and the next prompt continues the fun ad-nauseum. What makes it so binge-worthy, though, are the outlandish, insane things that these characters begin to discuss. While it’s mostly rated-R stuff and avoids being overtly offensive, it’s an uncanny valley to hear it coming from the voices of a bygone generation that millions of kids grew up with.

The quirks of ai_sponge are what makes it so fun to watch. Squidward is referred to as “Loudward” because his voice is significantly louder than anyone else’s. Cars are programmed to drive full speed and if they hit a character, they’ll go flying without breaking a word. If someone says “hungry” or “Krabby Patty”, they’ll get a burger in their hand. There’s attention to detail that’s been carefully programmed and the buildings/scenery has been upgraded as the month has gone by, but that’s not to say this AI generation goes off without a hitch.

There’s a looming sense of jank to ai_sponge that has had me burst out laughing on several occasions. While most words are pronounced perfectly, other more obscure words will sound hysterically off. Sometimes, characters will utter a bunch of mumbling nonsense due to the voice programming malfunctioning. Characters might go flying if a ball gets placed in their hand if they say “ball” or “catch”. There are so many ways this can break that you’re bound to see something off if you watch for even a few minutes.

Sadly, ai_sponge has to contend with Paramount Pictures, the owner of SpongeBob SquarePants‘ rights. Parody law should clear this channel based on fair use, but the channel treads on thin ice whenever they use licensed music. As such, the channel has been shut down on several occasions but always finds a way to keep going back up elsewhere. It’s a project that never says die, and, as any stream might be the last, it’s become something of a priority to watch in case it never comes back as a flash in the pan.

Who knows how long ai_sponge will go on for? The streams keep getting taken down, but they keep coming right back. It’s something nice to watch and I haven’t regretted putting it on once. If you’re looking to watch, you might have to put some time and effort into locating the stream, but it’s well worth it for some laughs. I’m not the biggest fan of AI automating things humans can do, but ai_sponge is a great example of its creativity under the right parameters.

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