Madhumita Murgia, Financial Times:
Greg Marston, a British voice actor with more than 20 years’ experience, recently stumbled across his own voice being used for a demo online.
Marston’s was one of several voices on the website Revoicer, which offers an AI tool that converts text into speech…
Since he had no memory of agreeing to his voice being cloned using AI, he got in touch with the company. Revoicer told him they had purchased his voice from IBM.
In 2005, Marston had signed a contract with IBM for a job he had recorded for a satnav system. In the 18-year-old contract, an industry standard, Marston had signed his voice rights away in perpetuity
The problem isn’t AI here. The problem is that it is possible—and, apparently, standard—to sign vital rights away to companies.
Not having full license over your own voice, as a voice actor, is ridiculous. It is unconscionable that we have allowed conditions to develop such that it has become an accepted part of the occupation.
Pavis [a lawyer who specializes in digital cloning technologies] said she has had at least 45 AI-related queries since January, including cases of actors who hear their voices on phone scams such as fake insurance calls or AI-generated ads.
Okay, AI voice synthesis companies definitely hold some blame here. Generating a new, a non-specific, synthetic voice is one thing, cloning an individual’s unique voice is something else altogether.