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.
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.