Why I Won't Sell My Voice To AI

Hey Siri, this is serious

Photo by Possessed Photography on Unsplash

I have been receiving AI Voice Over job listings on LinkedIn and Indeed recently, which chills me to the bone.

One recent job posting states that they are building an AI voice model, and that “Your voice will be used to train an AI which may sound like your voice.”

The listing shares a script sample, which reads pretty innocuously, something like, “Hey, let’s grab a coffee sometime and talk about this cool new product “blank”. As a Voice coach and performer, I have done some voice-over work.

Yet the idea of training an AI voice model, a Hal-like robot, to sell unknown products to who knows who feels nefarious. Once I “sell” my voice, it can be used and manipulated without my consent. It’s one thing to read a script as a voice-over actor and sign off on the text. It’s different when you’re training an AI to speak using your voice, which will then “grow intelligence” to create its responses in your likeness.

There are also multiple listings seeking speakers in different languages, and it appears to be happening globally. I realize that voice AI has been around for some time. Siri and Alexa are household names here in the USA. My sons used to test Siri on every question under the sun until she gave them a clever enough answer to “Why is the sky blue” or “What is infinity?”

I listen to longer articles read by an AI voice on my New York Times App, and I turned on the AI feature for my Substack, Love Your Voice. Maybe you are listening to this article read by an AI voice right now!

Yet it’s weird when I think of MY voice floating out there saying things that I did not say, in my liking. What if my family or my ex hears me and recognizes my voice? It’s the wild west for AI right now, and I don’t know or trust the terrain.

Scarlett Johansson is suing OpenAI and its co-owner, Sam Altman, for using a voice very similar to hers after she had refused their initial offer to hire her for their AI voice model. Sam Altman publicly stated that he would use Johansen’s voice after watching the movie HER, in which she plays an AI in a relationship with a human. The only problem is he did not ask the REAL her.

There seems to be an overwhelming demand for women’s voices in AI.

Is it the attraction of gender conforming servitude: “How may I help you today?”

Or is it our sexualized bedroom talk: “Hey stranger”?

Maybe it’s an old Mother wound that tech bros act out by having total control over a female-sounding voice?

Whatever the reason, I know that I’m not comfortable giving away my vocal DNA.

In the 1980s, Bette Midler sued an advertiser after they used one of her backup singers to emulate her voice in a commercial, despite her having declined the job. The court ruled in her favor that the voice was too similar to hers.

I am a trained vocalist like Bette Midler, and the idea that a robot could capture all of my years of vocal training, my particular timbre, and accent, even my vocal wear and tear from being alive for 51 years, feels wrong.

Hey Siri? Hey Alexa? How do you feel about AI voice models? I’m scared to know your answer.

Stay Calm & Speak On,

Jessica

Love Your Voice

P.S. What do you think of AI Voice Models? Do you use them? Share your thoughts, I’d love to know!