Hearing Sir Laurence Oliver's voice on work memorabilia may not give you the same thrill as seeing the famous English actor on stage or screen, but it can make your morning commute more interesting.
That's the vision of artificial intelligence startup ElevenLabs, which announced this week that fans of Hollywood icons like Judy Garland and James Dean can now hear the late movie stars' voices narrating books, essays and other digital text.
The company said it has signed deals with the likes of Oliver, Garland, Dean and Burt Reynolds to add their voices to a library of AI-generated voices on ElevenLab's new reader app. The product lets users listen to text on your phone, with actors' voices available for individual streaming.
ElevenLabs did not provide details about any financial compensation it is giving to the actors' estates.
“We deeply respect his legacy and are proud to have his voice as part of our platform,” Dustin Blank, head of partnerships at ElevenLabs, said in a blog post. “Adding them to our growing list of narrators is a big step in our mission to make content accessible in any language and voice.”
Lisa Minnelli, Judy Garland's daughter and representative of her estate, said in the post that her family is “thrilled to see our mother's voice available to the millions of people who loved her.”
Using AI to recreate a version of someone's voice has attracted negative attention after being used in nefarious ways, including earlier this year creating A fake robocall President Joe Biden has urged people not to vote in New Hampshire's presidential primary.
In another incident, the actress… Scarlett Johansson Eze May said he was “shocked, angry and in disbelief” after discovering that the voice option on OpenAI's ChatGPT app sounded like him. Johansen turned down OpenAI founder Sam Altman's offer to voice ChatGPT's text-to-speech product. Altman said the voice was not Johansson's.
AI had a key problem. The SAG-AFTRA strike Last year The new contract for actors includes limits on artificial intelligence. TV and film producers must obtain consent from actors to use digital replicas, and actors are also entitled to compensation for using AI to create their virtual likenesses.