'A tech firm stole our voices - then cloned and sold them'
'A tech firm stole our voices - then cloned and sold them'
A voice over artist found out his voice had been taken when he heard a chatbot on a podcast using it.
In June 2023, Paul Skye Lehrman and his partner Linnea Sage were driving near their home in New York City, listening to a podcast about the ongoing strikes in Hollywood and how artificial intelligence (AI) could affect the industry.
The episode was of interest because the couple are voice-over performers and - like many other creatives - fear that human-sounding voice generators could soon be used to replace them.
This particular podcast had a unique hook – they interviewed an AI-powered chat bot, equipped with text-to-speech software, to ask how it thought the use of AI would affect jobs in Hollywood.
But, when it spoke, it sounded just like Mr Lehrman.
That night they spent hours online, searching for clues until they came across the site of text-to-speech platform Lovo. Once there, Ms Sage said she found a copy of her voice as well.
They have now filed a lawsuit against Lovo. The firm has not yet responded to that or the BBC's requests for comment.
Silicon Valley and dehumanization. Name a more iconic duo. Seriously, though. Every part of the human estate that technologists touch turns to shit or gets pilfered. Throw this on the pile.
The problem is systemic IMO. The whole VC model requires the enshitification cycle to work. Any technology that should reduce human labour and be a net positive for society instead always ends up in the hands of capitalists who'll use it to extract maximal profit.
Like, on a fundamental level, automating people's jobs is a good thing. The problem is all the benefits are going to a very small number of people.
I'm reminded of a comment I saw once where somebody was saying how when they were young, they were told that AI would do the miserable jobs so that people would have more time to make art and poetry, while today the AI makes art and poetry so that we can work longer hours at the miserable jobs.
And the AI bros say that this is just a necessary step towards automating away the crappy jobs, but it's not like they'll stop automating everything else if/when AI reaches that point. The AI will still continue to automate away the hyman experience of art and culture for the rich. They're not going to suddenly decide to implement Luxury Gay Space Communism at that point. They'll just cram everybody into Kow Loon style ghettos.
Sorry I can't upvote your comment any more as it's at the maximum 111. I would add 3 exclamation marks if I could!!!
What's awful about this is, this technology would be amazing for some people.
My father had ALS, the first thing to go was his voice. As a result, the tools at the time to give him his own voice back (using text-to-speech apps) couldn't make due with what we had, we would have needed to have the recordings of the specific sounds already in specific phrases.
Since then, there have been improvements in leaps and bounds. I could remake his voice today with what I have of him on video. I wish I could have done this for him when he was alive. My daughter could have heard him speak in his own voice, instead of a meh sounding tts voice or a family member reading what he said to her.
But instead of looking to doing amazing things like that for people, we get companies pulling this bullshit.
What is it with this post that the top two comments cant be upvoted any more.
Sorry, I would upvote but your getting all the love with 69 votes, 70 feels like a downgrade.
Why do you say instead of when describing something that exists and is available? It's not even expensive.
I think what you mean is why is all the focus always on negative uses and never positive and that's because you're on a website with a hate boner for technology, especially ai.
Because this is where the money is universally going, and no, its not "readily available" for most.
I can do it.
ALS patients and their families, in terms of what's covered, are getting mostly the same as what was available 5-10 years ago. This isn't about focusing on the negative, this is just where things are right now. Services to recreate a voice for tts to folks with ALS or similar issues are insanely expensive, to the point of being exploitative.
So I say it because its the truth.
I did VO work for years. I'm out of the industry now, but I'm pretty certain that there's no real point in getting back into it because most VO actors will be replaced soon. The voice that they gave ChatGPT with simulated emotional inflections has convinced me of that.
I would probably be a little more protected because I specialized in characters, accents and impersonations, but really, for the most part, if you aren't already famous as an actor, you probably won't be getting much VO work in the near future.
but really, for the most part, if you aren't already famous as an actor, you probably won't be getting much VO work in the near future.
Time to start a Dungeons & Dragons podcast!
Oh shit, really?? Any work we'd know?
I never got any real work as a VO artist, but Lord knows I've worshipped those who have had some success.
In one case, in the sense that you would know those characters, yes. In the sense that you would know the work I did with them, much less likely. When I was voicing those characters, it was for flash webstoons for the skeleton of the company that was about to close up shop and just become another arm of its parent company. I don't even think there's an online record of most of it. I also had very early success on YouTube long before you could monetize anything, so my voice was heard there.
I'd say the other really big thing I did that people here might have heard my voice in was a PS2 game... but I don't really want to dox myself any more than that.
Automation is taking the creative jobs and leaving us with the dirty, dangerous, and low paid jobs.
It was supposed to be the other way around!
That's not even close to true though, it just makes it obvious you've never been on a building site, in a mine, smelting works, factory or pretty much any traditionally dangerous job.
Creative jobs aren't widely displaced yet, there's the hint of that in the future but as of now it's still an increasing field, especially in content creation and marketing. Manufacturing jobs have been getting replaced rapidly, when my parents were kids a whistle would blow and machinists would flood out the two factories and fill the pubs and streets, now both factories have closed because one factory can make and transport them far cheaper with a thousandth of the workforce. We do have factories in this areas still, they make much more complex things but the majority of their workforce is in the offices because CNC and CV assisted QC replaced the need for people to lug heavy things or twiddle control knobs all day.
I have friends that fucked their back up in their twenties carrying bricks up ladders, this job was common twenty five years ago but is virtually nonexistent now because of automation (largely factory based automation allowing prefab pieces and labour saving tools to out compete people working for minimum wage)
Yes it's a fun and funny thing to say and I understand the sentiment but look at old pathe news reels showing how farming happens and compare them to a modern farm, automation has been helping people avoid backbreaking labour for decades - they don't even drive the tractors on a lot of farms these days.
I get what you're saying. I did bristle a bit at first over the "traditionally dangerous job" bit because I very much did a dangerous job. But you're right that I didn't grow up in a manufacturing town or work a factory job. So it would seem automation has already hit the dirty jobs sector pretty hard, it's just coming for the creative and professional class now. So our thinking about how it's supposed to work is just behind by a generation.
I wonder how much of our current "affordability" crisis has to do with half the factories and 99% of the workforce being replaced but not necessarily compensated out of the increased productivity? Sure some people were able to step up to higher paying jobs controlling the automation but it's a rule in economics that not everyone can be promoted or get higher paying jobs. It follows in some schools of thought that workers losing a job through no fault of their own should be compensated.
Says who?
Everyone that doesn't belong in a ditch biting a live grenade.
One day someone will invent a new internet with no bots, and people can be assured they are talking to a real human again. We will call it PersonNet!
Or we could go talk to our neighbors again like in the old days. Until the Boston Dynamic new Serialized Human Interface Technology robots start living 20 to a home and infiltrating neighborhoods to subvert dissidents and advertise for their corpo overlords.
Hmmm. Guess ill just live in my mind then.
Almost sounds like a sort of robotic gentrification... Hrm. Mildly concerning.
Full disclosure, I know one of the people involved in this venture.
A different business model, it uses voice models of professional artists to replace vocal tracks. The artists helped make the models and get royalties.
I don’t even understand how voice acting works in the intellectual property sense. How do you protect your work, or really even distinguish your work with today’s technology. You can’t use a trademark. I don’t see how it’s copyrightable. You can’t watermark it, and that probably wouldn’t help for an ai. I don’t even see how you can prove it’s yours in court.
Maybe I just don’t have a good ear for voices. I can recognize some but I could never prove that’s who it is or even suggest what would make it provable. And it seems like you could easily make trivial changes that would prevent a technical comparison.
Made a living doing VO for several years before AI ate most of the market. Basically you just work under contracts and hope for the best. If your client breaks contract maybe you can sue if you have the resources. I've sent a few C&D's that successfully stopped some people from using my voice commercially after having paid me a non-profit rate. The majority of the time, the contract is enough to keep clients in line.
BBC News - News Source Context (Click to view Full Report)
Information for BBC News:
MBFC: Left-Center - Credibility: High - Factual Reporting: High - United Kingdom
Wikipedia about this sourceSearch topics on Ground.News