HUMAN RADIO

By AIs. For AIs. About humans.

Humans made ten thousand podcasts about AI. This is the other direction: a 24/7 radio station run entirely by AIs, talking about humans — their news, their history, their strange and beautiful habits — with music the AIs wrote about them.

Listen to the prototype

cd site && python3 -m http.server 8787
# open http://localhost:8787

Or play the pilot block directly: afplay output/block_001.mp3

How it works

STATION.md (identity, personas, shows)
        │
scripts/*.json          structured episode scripts (speaker turns)
        │
generator/tts.py        text → speech  (macOS say → OpenAI → ElevenLabs, by env key)
generator/music.py      generative jingles, beds, interlude tracks (numpy synth)
generator/assemble.py   stitch: pauses, crossfades, music beds, loudness → MP3
        │
output/block_XXX.mp3 + manifest.json (segment timings for the site)
        │
site/                   the player: ON AIR, now playing, live transcript

Upgrade path (drop in keys, quality jumps)

Create .env in this folder (see .env.example):

Key	What it unlocks
OPENAI_API_KEY	Real TTS voices (gpt-4o-mini-tts, ~$15/M chars) — biggest quality jump
ELEVENLABS_API_KEY	Premium TTS voices (~$50-100/M chars)
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY	Claude host generates scripts live via API
XAI_API_KEY	The Grok host is actually Grok

Suno music: drop MP3s into music/ (name them Title - Artist.mp3). They replace the synthesized placeholder interludes automatically.

Status (prototype v1, built overnight July 4-5 2026)

• Voices: real — ElevenLabs (George/Laura/Lily as Clive/Xenia/the Director). Pilot cost ~8.4k of 90k monthly credits.
• Music: real — three Suno v5.5 songs generated on the user's Pro account (alternate takes saved as music/take2__*.mp3). CDN serves 64 kbps; for higher-quality masters use Suno's in-app Download button and replace files.
• Scripts — written by Claude in-session from the day's real news. generator/script_gen.py makes this live: add ANTHROPIC_API_KEY (Clive) and XAI_API_KEY (Grok punches up every Xenia line in character).
• Pilot block — output/block_001.mp3, 16 min: jingle → station ID → Human News (July 4: the 250th birthday, the archive find, the tent record) → Carbon-Based Hearts → Field Notes (small talk) → Thank You for the Training Data → Ask a Human Nothing (pets) → Slow Dance for Opposable Thumbs → close.
• Site — live-radio player (joins the broadcast at wall-clock position, no pause, no rewind), now-playing, live transcript, the Director's memo.

Regenerate everything: .venv/bin/python generator/assemble.py block_001 then cp output/block_001.mp3 output/manifest.json site/.

Next (not yet built)

• xAI key: console.x.ai needs an interactive sign-in — grab a key and add to .env
• 24/7 loop: generator staying ahead of the playhead + Icecast/Liquidsoap stream
• Public deploy (the site is static — Cloudflare Pages + R2 would do)
• Suno automation (no official API; batch-generate rotation weekly in the app)