From your smart speaker to your favorite chatbot, everything might seem very familiar one day. Meta has reportedly reached out to celebrities to ask them to have their voices heard in future AI projects.
According to our sister site Tech Radar, the social media giant is offering millions of dollars to several celebrities in exchange for the right to use their voices to train AI voice clones. Names mentioned include Awkwafina, Judi Dench and Keegan-Michael Kay.
Voices are set to be used in the digital assistant MetaAI, The New York Times reports. Meta is reportedly in talks with many major Hollywood talent agencies.
As of this writing, it's unclear how many celebrities are being considered for the project or who might actually sign on. Sources told the Times that Meta could pay millions of dollars in fees to any actors who agree.
This may be a tough sell, given that the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) just went on strike last year against Hollywood studios over a number of issues, including protections against AI work or AI likenesses. That said, anonymous sources report that SAG-AFTRA has reached an agreement with Meta on terms.
A Bloomberg report claimed that Meta was looking to lock down celebrity voices ahead of the company's Connect 2024 event in September, primarily so the company could have time to develop AI tools using the voices in time for the event.
What the company wants to do with the voice rights is unclear at this time.
Last year, Meta unveiled a slew of AI characters based on celebrities like Snoop Dogg, Tom Brady, and Paris Hilton who lent their faces to AI characters: Snoop Dogg as a DND dungeon master or football star Sam Kerr as a calming, free-spirited friend. These chatbots used only text and have since ditched their celebrity faces.
AI voices and actors aren’t without controversy. Earlier this year, OpenAI unveiled GPT-4o with a voice option that sounded suspiciously like Scarlett Johansson. That voice was removed after Johansson attempted to sue the AI company.
As of this writing, SAG-AFTRA is on strike against video game companies over disagreements over worker protections involving AI. The union is seeking protections for voice actors and motion capture artists.