Stephen Fry once said “books are no more threatened by Kindle than stairs by elevators.” But when it comes to AI, the English actor and broadcaster might be changing his tune…
Fry was shocked when he recently discovered AI software had taken his voice from the Harry Potter audiobooks and replicated them without his consent.
The astounding revelation for the 66 year-old star of QI and Blackadder follows widespread condemnation of AI voice replication and ‘deepfakes’ by actors, one of the focal points of the ongoing WGA and SAG-AFRA strikes.
“Breaking Bad” star Bryan Cranston slammed the use of AI during a SAG-AFTRA rally: “We will not be having our jobs taken away and given to robots.” https://t.co/6e4gSI6jpw pic.twitter.com/uMWqnyj63t
— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) July 26, 2023
After playing a clip of his voice narrating a historical documentary, Fry told Variety:
“I said not one word of that — it was a machine. Yes, it shocked me,”
“They used my reading of the seven volumes of the ‘Harry Potter’ books, and from that dataset an AI of my voice was created, and it made that new narration.”
And it doesn’t stop there. Apple recently announced sweeping new changes to iPhones including a feature that promises to replicate a user’s voice for phone calls after only 15 minutes of training.
Will AI-replicated voice be the way of the future?
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