Two Menlo Park residents use AI to create popular podcast in Spanish
Elton Sherwin, a local podcast producer, and Gisell Quihuis, the Director of Faculty Development and Diversity at Stanford University School of Medicine, met one Sunday in late 2023 after church.
Gisell asked if it would be possible to create a Spanish version of Elton’s popular, award-winning podcast, The Bible and Homosexuality: An LGBTQ Positive View.
Gisell wanted to share the podcast with her Spanish-speaking relatives. There are more Spanish-speaking Christians than English-speaking ones; think of Mexico, Central America, South America, and Spain. Moreover, some Spanish-language churches teach quite conservative, homophobic messages.
Sherwin began his podcast during the pandemic while recovering from a stroke to counter the vitriol he had heard in some Christian Bible studies. He believes these homophobic messages contribute to the alarming suicide rates among young queer Christians.
However, the idea of translating the podcast into Spanish posed significant challenges. Unlike translating written text, converting spoken content into another language requires sophisticated technology to produce natural-sounding voices.
Elton’s podcasts often feature multiple speakers, with some episodes involving four or five distinct voices. “Our aim wasn’t to create perfect AI voices indistinguishable from humans, but to ensure the audio was pleasant and faithfully represented the original content,” Elton explained.
To tackle this, Elton and Gisell developed an AI-generated cohost named Christina Maestra. This synthetic voice, derived from advanced translation software, became an integral part of their Spanish podcast.
“We’re so impressed with ‘Christina’ that we plan to feature ‘her’ in some of our future English podcasts as well,” said Elton.
English listeners can experience this AI-generated dialogue in “Gisell, Catalina and Our Spanish Story,” a special English-Spanish mashup available in the English podcast series, The Bible and Homosexuality.
The Spanish podcast is titled: La Biblia y La Homosexualidad – Valorando Minorías Sexuales and is also available on major podcasting platforms.
