philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

AI voice actors sound more human than ever—and they’re ready to hire

But some actors have grown increasingly worried about their livelihoods, says a spokesperson at SAG-AFTRA, the union representing voice actors in the US. If they’re not afraid of being automated away by AI, they’re worried about being compensated unfairly or losing control over their voices, which constitute their brand and reputation.

This is now the subject of a lawsuit against TikTok brought by the Canadian voice actor Bev Standing, who alleges that the app’s built-in voice-over feature uses a synthetic copy of her voice without her permission. Standing’s experience also echoes that of Susan Bennett, the original voice of American Siri, who was paid for her initial recordings but not for the continued use of her vocal likeness on millions of Apple devices.

Several now use a profit-sharing model to pay actors every time a client licenses their specific synthetic voice, which has opened up a new stream of passive income. Others involve the actors in the process of designing their AI likeness and give them veto power over the projects it will be used in. SAG-AFTRA is also pushing for legislation to protect actors from illegitimate replicas of their voice.

But for VocaliD’s Patel, the point of AI voices is ultimately not to replicate human performance or to automate away existing voice-over work. Instead, the promise is that they could open up entirely new possibilities. What if in the future, she says, synthetic voices could be used to rapidly adapt online educational materials to different audiences? “If you’re trying to reach, let’s say, an inner-city group of kids, wouldn’t it be great if that voice actually sounded like it was from their community?”

See the full story here: https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/07/09/1028140/ai-voice-actors-sound-human/