Although ChatGPT has been talking about itself a lot lately, the age of artificial intelligence is just beginning and it seems to be a candidate to replace humans in more and more industries. After industries like advertising and even journalism, the voice-over industry may be the last to join this list.
According to a report via Gizmodo, last week various sound artists were asked to sign new contracts that included the audio rights. The goal was to create a synthetic version of their voice that could be used as a substitute for the real artist. As stated in the news, in some cases the artists were not even aware of the existence of such an article, and in some cases it was necessary to accept this article.
While it may seem interesting at first to be able to create a digital version of your sound and make money by making that digital sound work, the issue here may be a much deeper concern than it first appears. There is a fear that artists will not receive additional compensation for using their synthetic voices.
There are some additional dangers to this movement, where artists cannot control when and where their voices are used without permission. Perhaps worse, it would be possible for just about anyone to create a synthetic sound using a public sound source. The fact that the issue has been handled by industry professionals such as Steve Blum, Stephanie Sheh and Kara Edwards shows the seriousness of the situation more clearly.
Just last month, an AI-generated voice similar to actress Emma Watson was used to read excerpts from Hitler’s Mein Kampf, which was later uploaded to 4chan. It was reported that a beta program from ElevenLabs was used to perform the task.
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