The BBC has issued a statement that offers important context to Sara Poyzer’s viral social media posts. The British broadcaster said it is using AI technology in a “highly sensitive documentary” to represent the voice of a person who is nearing the end of their life.
Poyzer was penciled in for the job, but her services are no longer required as the BBC attempts to honor the wishes of the contributor’s family by dedicating a brief — and clearly signposted — section of the documentary to recreating “a voice which can now no longer be heard.”
I’m not sure what to think about that.
I’m all for shitting on replacing people with AI, but in this case it’s done with the agreement of the person, who is still able to give it, who can’t talk anymore, and for a documentary. So sure, they could have done it with a voice-over actor, and maybe I’d have preferred it too, but I can’t really say this feels wrong. At this point it feels a bit like Stephen Hawking using his voice synthesis software.
If the person was unable to agree and didn’t write what is being told with “their” voice though? That’d be shit.
Stephen Hawking grew to like his voice synthesizer. At one point, Intel, who made the device, offered to upgrade it to a more natural voice and he declined, as he identified it (as did the public) as “his voice”.
Yeah but now that they have it after this person is dead then what? They could then use it without their permission and probably will.
They could do that anyway, at least to the same extent that they could in any situation. This stuff isn’t new, it’s been possible to recreate someone’s voice for over a decade. Current generations are just getting more natural sounding, and require much, much less training material.