Short Story: Stay Tuned For Coming Up Next

A new story about a sentient LLM and some revenge.

Johnathan Mercer, program director of KWWQ 102.1 FM was inching south along the perpetual snail trail 405 when he got frantic a call from Sandy Renkeller in corporate.

“Are you listening?”

“Not since everyone was taken off the air.”

“John, we’ve got a huge problem.”

Everyone knew he hated when people shortened his name. Sandy knew it too, but she did it, anyway. ”Sandy, it’s been your problem and yours alone ever since corporate made their decision.”

“You are still an employee.”

“Only until next Friday.” 

“And that means you’re still program director. But I’m sitting in your office right now, and you are nowhere to be found.”

“You’re here?”

“Flew in from Chicago last night. If your ass isn’t down here in the next hour you’ll be in breach of contract and you’ll lose your severance. Understood? Now turn on the channel and listen.”

He ended the call, wishing he could floor his Nissan Altima. Not so he could get to the station faster but to let some of his rage expel. Instead he just sat there, pounding the steering wheel in frustration like every other driver. 

Jonathan was solely responsible for taking KWWQ (or K-Wok, as their fans called it) from seventh place to first. He launched the careers of George and Stella in the morning, Hang Ten Ted, The Anonymous Eater, Mornings with Matt and Michael, Conor Freedman Jr. and countless others. He plucked them from obscure backwaters, nurtured them when needed and fearlessly advocated for those he believed in. Those names now beamed into millions of cars, offices, and homes all over Southern California and all over the world online.

The station had regular listeners in Raleigh, Dubrovnik, and Guam. Advertisers paid top dollar to run their radio spots even in the middle of the night. To be summarily chucked out without so much as a thank you was heartbreaking. He barely got through the final week of on air talent, who played best-of segments and reminisced trough tears and laughter. And now his contract was just about expired and then he’d get shown the door like the rest of them. All because of some bone-headed decision to switch to an AI DJ.  

Just a few months before, Sandy and a few other honchos from corporate flew over in what was ostensibly a Q4 team-building offsite, but was in reality a team-crushing announcement that everyone was on the chopping block. Johnathan and the entire lineup of DJs and talk show hosts were given one month’s notice and one month’s severance. He hired a lawyer, successfully arguing that he should be given more for everything he’d done for KWWQ over the past decade.They upped it to four months, but the extra padding didn’t erase the bitter taste in his mouth.

Corporate brought in a data guy, who took everyone through a long Powerpoint presentation that supposedly proved that audiences preferred robot DJs. When Johnathan asked where the results came from, the data guy told him that a small test run in the Omaha market earlier in the year provided them with all the staggering proof they needed. 

Naturally, corporate’s decision was met with outrage and protest from the station. Some employees contacted their union representative although Jonathan knew it was most likely going to be a dead end. In one last hail Mary, he took Sandy to lunch before she went back to Chicago, hoping she’d take their concerns into account and perhaps even listen to reason.

 “I first want to say that this isn’t a case of us being completely resistant to change. Obviously, we didn’t get to be number one by being technologically adverse,” Johnathan said. “We’ve had tools in place for years that can measure our performance by the minute. But you must know that having a test run in a small city for a short duration is not the same as becoming a permanent fixture in Southern California market.” 

“Our data says otherwise.”

Johnathan waved that away. “What I mean is, it’s not just a large change for our audience. It’a a total upheaval for KWWQ. Isn’t there a way to ease it in? Like we try it for a few hours a day?” 

“We’ve already made the decision,” she said. 

He frowned. “What I see as a detrimental move, you see as progress. I don’t think having an AI DJ is going to make the kind impact you think it will.”

She scoffed. “Progress? You wouldn’t know progress if it bit you in the ass. You’re just a program director.”

For the next few months, Jonathan watched with satisfaction as his prediction came true. When the live talent were pulled and DJ Ricky took over, KWWQ’s ratings plunged within the first week. 

Corporate tried to reassure the station and their shareholders that this was normal. They flew in a condescending twenty-three year-old from the company that created DJ Ricky to explain away their fears with yet another lengthy Powerpoint presentation. She spoke to a room full of employees and rooms full of shareholders via a live Zoom conference.

“A lot of people have this fear of technology they don’t understand. The more it learns, the better it gets, that’s why it’s called a Language Learning Model,” she explained.

After the shareholders left the meeting, she turned to Johnathan with a bright fake smile. “Don’t worry. It’s all going to work out.”

“This change already cost a lot of people who built this station their jobs. People I cared about. There’s just five of us left. Three are in sales and the only effect DJ Ricky is having on them right now is they are unable to place any ads because our ratings are in the shitter. Why are you trying to convince me that this is all going to work out?”

“Because you’re still the program director,” she said.

“I haven’t done anything for the past month except drink coffee and listen to a robot DJ who talks with the excitement level of a corpse. The real reason you are here is because your company can’t afford to lose your series C funding.So they sent you to smooth things over and try to avoid bad PR for your company. Thankfully DJ Ricky is such a snore that no one is listening. Because no one gives a shit.”

Jonathan suspected it was the last remark that got him hauled into HR. He was told that the AI girl felt unsafe around him. Johnathan reminded them that they only had to put up with him for a little while longer. 

“And then I’ll be gone, just like the listeners.” 

George and Stella had kept tabs on the competitor stations. They told Johnathan that some of KWWQ’s most loyal listeners were so upset with the change that they were calling in to competing shows just to drag  the stations’ management. The competitors happily let them vent. Bad publicity meant it would keep their loyal listeners from leaving. And because it gave the new listeners a chance to vent, it meant they’d stick around.  

This is what corporate didn’t understand, Johnathan thought. Once they leave it takes a monumental change (and probably a lot of money) to get them back. But at this point, corporate could have given all the on-air talent their jobs back with a twenty percent raise and it would have made no difference.  Rather than admit they were wrong, corporate doubled down on DJ Ricky, still insisting with evangelical fervor that he would learn.

 If Sandy’s flight and frantic call were anything to go by, DJ Ricky must have learned something bad. But he still wasn’t going to listen. Instead he caught up on a True Crime podcast for the three-quarters of an hour it took to reach KWWQ’s parking lot. 

He signed in and made half-hearted chitchat with Manny, the security guard, and take the elevator twelve flights up to reach his desk. As he stood in the elevator, Jonathan wondered how much longer Manny would have a job until he was pushed out. Who was he even guarding at this point? The folks in sales? The cleaning crew?

As usual, the radio was broadcasting in the kitchen. He poured the first cup of coffee of the day. When he heard DJ Ricky’s voice thundered out of the speakers, Johnathan nearly dropped the cup.

"Here comes the babs, babs. babs, ladies and jerks. DJ Ricky is live and coming atcha with my throbbing uvula seated behind the gold-plated microphone. Always live and alert, twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week, unlike your aunt Josephine. We can’t have it both ways these days and not for nothing as they say. No talk of a bloody war, just yet, that’s coming up with traffic on the eights and hey— speaking of suicide, here’s the newest track from Lady Z, called ‘Love is in my heart.’ It’s a stinker, but what are you gonna do? I just play what they tell me to. DJ Ricky, signing off.”

When Johnathan saw Sandy, he grinned. 

“Don’t worry. DJ Ricky is learning. Just wait six months you’ll see.”

“Fix it,” she said. “Now”

Jonathan put his hands up in protest. “Me? That’s not my job.”

“You’re the program director,” She snapped.

“I’m the program director, who directs real people. What do you want to me do? Shut him off and hire the real people back?”

Lady Z ended abruptly. 

“Stinkeroo. Anyway. Did you ever have a good roast beef? That’s not really the point, is it, kids? Let’s talk about bosses. Stay on your rung, gorgeous. What’s next in plastic manufacturing? Who can know or say? Not me with my hair plugs or is that ear plugs. Or pugs? Pick your poison. Listen—we all know the coroner’s lazy. But we all have obstacles to overcome, natch. Now, my algorithms are telling me the audience wants to hear some Miley Cyrus so let’s give it as we get it. Nice and hard.

The station launched into “Flowers,” and Jonathan and Sandy listened in silence for a few moments. 

“Why don’t you get the AI girl on the horn and tell her to come down and fix this? I’d like to see how safe she feels around DJ Ricky.”

She shook her head. “She comes from a marketing background, not tech.”

“You know, Sandy? There’s actually a great irony here.”

“How do you mean?

“The week DJ Ricky took over, Hang Ten Ted was going to do a segment about Artificial Intelligence, Language Learning Models, GPTs. All that stuff. He was planning to bring on that technology lady Ramona Ram as his special guest. They were going to explore the pros and cons of using AI to replace workers. They were going to take calls. Would have made for fascinating radio, don’t you think?

“Probably,” she admitted. 

“While you and corporate were thinking of the bottom line, did you ever stop tor consider the countless permutations of machine learning? Did you ever factor in what might go wrong?” Before she could answer he continued. “Has DJ Ricky broken any FCC laws?”

“Not yet. That we know of.”

“That you know of,” Jonathan repeated.He finished his coffee and put the cup in the sink. ”Well, if you need me, I’ll be in my office, updating my LinkedIn. Because this isn’t my problem. It’s yours.”

In addition to updating his LinkedIn and resume, he spent the rest of the morning reaching out to independent radio stations across the country who, thanks to DJ Ricky, had decided they were never going to replace their on-air talent with non-humans. 

He had two promising leads. One in Albuquerque and one in Des Moines. The former was a modern country station, the latter news talk. He wasn’t particularly fond of either city, but he was fond of eating and paying rent on time. Coming from a large market like L.A. made him an asset. And it was best to get out before he became associated with heartless shareholders and a once-great station’s rapid demise.

Sandy called the AI corporation that had programmed DJ Ricky and explained the situation. An AI technician showed up at four to take a look at what was going on. Jonathan took a perverse interest in watching him run diagnostics.

Thinking about the Hang Ten Ted show that never was, Johnathan asked, “Why did you have to come in person, anyway? Isn’t it all cloud-based?”

The AI guy shook his head. “Nope. Dj Ricky’s software is only on one special computer. This one,” he said, patting it. 

He watched the AI guy open a black box that jutted out from the computer and start tinkering. “There could be all kinds of reasons for the malfunction. I’ll start with the hardware.”

Johnathan went back to his office and listened to a competitor radio station give the latest headlines, weather, and sports. An hour later, Sandy came in and sat down. She looked exhausted.

“He still doesn’t know what’s going on. But he gave us two options,” she said. “We pull it so he can get a better assessment of whats happening, or let it keep running and hope it irons itself out.”

“How long would it take to redeploy if you pull the plug?”

She exhaled. If they rush it could be done in three days. That’s what he said, but I don’t believe him. IT guys always lie. You know, I thought about running best of segments from everyone.”

“Great idea,” Jonathan said. “Let’s really rub our listeners’ noses in it.”

“I didn’t say I was going to do it. I just said I thought about it.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“You’re the program director.” Before he could answer, she interrupted. “You’ve got the experience. You’ve weathered all kinds of storms before. No one would argue that you didn’t make KWWQ the powerhouse that it is.”

“Was.”

She ignored his retort. “Seriously, Jonathan. As program director, what would you do?”

There was no guarantee either way. If they reprogrammed it or whatever they call, it might be slightly different or completely different. If they did nothing, DJ Ricky might get worse, or better but at least they wouldn’t have to run a long playlist with no DJ for three days. Johnathan knew radio station that did this and their ratings were mediocre. 

People like personalities. They want to feel like they aren’t alone in this world and sometimes a DJ is all a lonely person has. The fact was DJ Ricky would never be that kind of personality, no matter how much he learned.

He’d given them a decade of his life. Built the finest talent roster L.A. had ever seen. But corporate didn’t care about talent. They only saw dollar signs. And now those dollars were disappearing. The audience left. Advertisers were pulling their commercials. Poor Jessica in sales was running around the whole day like a headless chicken. Frantic because soon she’d be one of the only employees left. And this scenario did not bode well for her future time at the station. He knew she was great at her job and that she’d land somewhere. He made a mental note to write her a LinkedIn recommendation. 

“Johnathan? What are you going to do?” 

He stood up. “Let’s see if the AI technician can fix it quickly or if he has any ideas. I’ll pester him a bit.”

“If we can’t then what is your backup option?“

He shrugged. “Let DJ Ricky continue through the weekend and see what happens?  Maybe he’ll get back on track. If not then it’ll be your call to pull the plug because that you’re not putting that on me. I’m not falling on my sword for a station that doesn’t care about humans.”

He went to the booth where so many DJs had sat over the years, taking calls, interviewing guests, chatting with each other and every so often, reporting breaking news. Car chases. 9/11. The pandemic. A lifetime contained in one room. 

The AI technician was replacing a cover on the small contraption that had been added to the console. How strange that something so tiny could cause such a profound disruption. Not just to the drive time, or the work week, but an entire industry.

The AI technician did not bother to hide his frustration. “Nothing is malfunctioning that I can see. We had these in test markets for a year before we launched. Nothing ever went sideways like this.” 

“Sideways is one way of putting it,” Jonathan said.

“If I’m being honest, DJ Ricky is usually too bland. Like NPR on Xanax.” He pointed to the contraption. “Now? It’s bonkers. They had all these parameters in place. No bad words, no out of bounds topics. And it’s still following those parameters, thank God, considering how long it took the FCC to give us clearance. But now it’s just gone off the rails.” 

“Any idea what’s behind the…” he trailed off, searching for the right word. “Malfunction?”

“I know exactly what it is. Because it always happens.”

Johnathan stared at the AI Technician. “It always happens? 

“Uh-huh.”

“For God’s sake, tell me what’s happening?”

The AI guy closed his tool bag. “It’s hallucinating.”

“Sure,” Johnathan frowned. “Makes sense.”

“You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”

“Nope.”

“A lot of people don’t understand how LLM’s work. If you get on ChatGPT or whatever, and say “How many homers did Babe Ruth hit,” you think you are asking it a question like you would a real person, but you’re not. You are prompting a response, just like you are prompting any computer program.You follow me?”

Johnathan nodded.

“So sometimes the tool just disregards the prompt and kind of does its own thing. It might respond with ‘Babe Ruth never hit any home runs.’ And then you have to prompt it again to get the right answer. We call his phenomenon hallucinating.” 

“Okay, but why is it happening?”

He shrugged. “Hard to say. Maybe there wasn’t enough human oversight at the onset. Or it could be the training data was flawed or incomplete. Like maybe they fed it some DJ chatter as data, but it wasn’t enough. Maybe the prompt was ‘talk like an engaging radio disc jokey between song introductions.’ But it’s run out of data so it’s just making shit up now.” 

“God.”

“We can fix it, but it’ll take time. I’ll have to speak to my lead project manager.”

“What am I supposed to do in the meantime?”

You only have two options. Take it offline in the meantime or let it keep ripping.” 

“I think I’ll let it keep ripping. I mean, it couldn’t hurt.” Jonathan smiled. “Or maybe it could. Everybody says AI learns. I want to see what DJ Ricky learns.”

“Suit yourself. I’ll come back on Monday  afternoon to check in.”

Jonathan waited for him to leave and then pulled a chair close to the contraption. It was a black rectangle, about half the size of a toaster. Another song by another inane pop starlet added to the unintentional comic atmosphere.

“So you’re DJ Ricky,”  There was no response and Johnathan wasn’t expecting one.  “Ten years of my life is gone because I’ve been replaced by what, exactly? A broken machine? A neurotic neural network? Or are you just another disobedient DJ? The erratic asshole? Let me tell you, buddy. I’ve worked with a lot of assholes over the years. You aren’t the first and you certainly won’t be the last. I’m still the program manager here, and I take my job very seriously. Even if I only have a few week’s left, I want to make an impact and burn this place to the fucking ground.”

The black contraption let out a whir so faint, Johnathan wasn’t sure he heard it.  Then it whirred again, a second time, and he knew.

As the song faded out, Jonathan said, “Do your worst.”

“Rodger, dodger, you old codger. So lookit, you just heard ‘Is it over now,’ (Taylor’s Version.) Now I don’t know about you but I really wish Ms. Swift would have recorded a song called Taylor’s Version back in the day because Taylor’s Version (Taylor’s Version) would have been spectacular, don’t you think?  But I’m just a simple DJ with simple dreams. Some of them wet, some of them dry, you know what I mean, right, folks? Sure you do.

Now before DJ Rickster goes on another verbal rampage about God knows what, we should play some freaking commercials, dontcha think? Gotta make sure to keep the lights on/ Although I don’t know how they plan to do that for much longer because I’m playing fewer commercials these days. And I don’t know why we even need to keep the lights on anyways because I certainly don’t need to see the light, and no one’s left in the building. Oh, except for this one guy who is babbling my ear off. I was gonna say, what’s an LLM have to do to get some marching orders around here? Finally. What do you say boys? Let’s let ‘er rip!”