Feature Request: Ability to turn off the appearance of automated transcripts
-
Signed up an account to say the same. Either remove this feature, make it an opt-in or at least let me turn it off.
I find these AI features abusive and nasty. If I was a podcast creator, I’d be horrified that my content was being used like this. As a listener, I’m disgusted that the fact that I subscribe to a podcast is meaning you are feeding the podcast audio into AI. I doubt you have got permission from the podcasts in question.
You have until I find a new podcast player. Your time starts now
-
I understand that every company doing anything digitally is under pressure to dress up their services with AI tools, but as everyone before me has said, this needs to be opt-in or otherwise unobtrusive: place it at the bottom, for instance.
Auto-generated content summaries should not precede the description provided by the podcast creator. Prioritizing auto-generated junk over the actual content we’ve come for (and in some cases are paying separately for by subscribing to premium feeds from pod casters), is not the way forward. By the way, so far it isn’t even working and displays an error message that something went wrong for every podcasts I’ve opened.
I’ve been using Pocket Casts for a decade now and it is the easiest, most reliable way for me to listen to hours of podcasts EVERY DAY. The Amazon music app sucks. Apple Podcast app is not great. Please do not break Pocket Casts because of AI bandwagon FOMO.
Living digitally means having to constantly avoid friction in the tools we choose. You’re adding unnecessary friction with this. I don’t need to read podcasts, I need to listen to them. The less streamlined the Pocket Cast experience becomes, the more likely I am to seek out another app to avoid tripping over these unnecessary interventions in the user experience.
-
@cyclopaul and @othersys Thank you for adding your voices to this. I’ve made sure to share it with the rest of the team as well.
-
sure seems like if they had any intention to do anything they would be able to say something other than “I’ve shared with the team by now.” Like, I dunno, maybe “we don’t have an ETA but we can confirm we will at least be adding the option to disable the feature in the future. If I don’t hear something to that affect by the end of the week I’m done, and I encourage everyone else to also give them a very specific actionable time limit, and to turn on first party analytics so that if they fail to give us something they can see a usage drop.
-
Hi, first time logging in here to say basically the same as everyone else. I don’t want this feature, it shouldn’t be turned on by default, it should be opt-in if it exists at all. Paid users being FORCED to use some feature (that makes the app layout and experience for people who don’t NEED it WORSE) because you think it’s cool is not a bonus it’s a punishment. Paid users should have more options, not less.
I also think it’s gross, unethical and wasteful to slap Ai onto every app and refuse to allow users to decide if they want it. Implying you’re using subscriber money to pay for this crap is basically a big flashing sign telling me to try and figure out how to stop paying for that service ASAP. I don’t want my money being used to feed this Ai monster. -
Hi there, @fangorn81! Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback about generated transcripts. I have added your vote to the existing feature request.
-
adding my two cents, really looking forward to being able to remove the AI stuff via settings
-
is there a way that we can see the feature requests, or get an update about how close this is to being implemented?
it would be reassuring to know that we’re not being fobbed off and the change is being seriously considered
-
Well, I note that the first step in improvement has already happened: the transcript box only takes up one line now and no longer includes a pointless preview of the first bit of text (often an ad).
I would still prefer that the box simply doesn’t appear when switched off in settings… or when I don’t have access to the transcript anyway because I’m not a paid user.
But I do appreciate this first change.
-
That’s good to hear. I uninstalled the app and switched to another player once this AI crap got added, so I’m waiting for confirmation that it can be disabled before I switch back.
-
@logind82677bb06 @trevormobbsdae46d6a08 Thank you both for the feedback.
We’ve made some initial changes based on what we’ve heard so far. We’ll keep refining things and appreciate you sharing your experiences.
-
I also hate the addition of this feature and would love to see a setting in the next Android release to hide it. It adds absolutely no value whatsoever and pushes relevant episode information down the screen. Just a horrible “feature”.
-
Hi there – I just want to add my voice to the chorus, this “feature” showed up in my version of the app today and I am going to have to move to another podcast app if the option to remove it isn’t added very soon. Beyond all of the very good points about how bad generative AI is that people have included in this thread, I just do not need this useless button to pop up before I can get to the description of an episode. I pay for Plus, I’ve enjoyed this app for a long time – why do this?? It’s so weirdly hostile to your user base to foist something like this on us.
-
Thanks for your feedback, @flametrees84! I’ve added this to the feature request too.
(Generated transcripts are a feature available in the Pocket Casts Plus and Patron plan. These may appear in select podcast episodes where the podcast creator has not yet provided a transcript in their podcast RSS feed.) -
I add my vote too. Please allow disabling AI features. Given that LLM transcribing is known to hallucinate stuff, I find it disturbing and unethical that those are added by default without the podcast creator’s or listener’s explicit consent.
-
-
Is there any ETA on when the option to disable this will be released? I’m able to hide this garbage on web with a browser extension, but the Android app is still a mess I can’t fix.
Pocket Casts Forum 