A voice over artist found out his voice had been taken when he heard a chatbot on a podcast using it.

In June 2023, Paul Skye Lehrman and his partner Linnea Sage were driving near their home in New York City, listening to a podcast about the ongoing strikes in Hollywood and how artificial intelligence (AI) could affect the industry.

The episode was of interest because the couple are voice-over performers and - like many other creatives - fear that human-sounding voice generators could soon be used to replace them.

This particular podcast had a unique hook – they interviewed an AI-powered chat bot, equipped with text-to-speech software, to ask how it thought the use of AI would affect jobs in Hollywood.

But, when it spoke, it sounded just like Mr Lehrman.

That night they spent hours online, searching for clues until they came across the site of text-to-speech platform Lovo. Once there, Ms Sage said she found a copy of her voice as well.

They have now filed a lawsuit against Lovo. The firm has not yet responded to that or the BBC’s requests for comment.

  • @[email protected]English
    9•3 months ago

    Oh shit, really?? Any work we’d know?

    I never got any real work as a VO artist, but Lord knows I’ve worshipped those who have had some success.

    • Flying SquidMEnglish
      13•3 months ago

      In one case, in the sense that you would know those characters, yes. In the sense that you would know the work I did with them, much less likely. When I was voicing those characters, it was for flash webstoons for the skeleton of the company that was about to close up shop and just become another arm of its parent company. I don’t even think there’s an online record of most of it. I also had very early success on YouTube long before you could monetize anything, so my voice was heard there.

      I’d say the other really big thing I did that people here might have heard my voice in was a PS2 game… but I don’t really want to dox myself any more than that.

      • @CMDR_HornEnglish
        11•3 months ago

        There aren’t that many PS2 games let’s all start guessing lol

        • Flying SquidMEnglish
          9•3 months ago

          Wikipedia says there are over 4000, so good luck with that. It was a well-received game but it wasn’t exactly GTA.

            • Flying SquidMEnglish
              7•3 months ago

              Unless I was being highly deceptive and I’m actually Ice-T.

              (I’m not Ice-T)

          • @[email protected]English
            4•3 months ago

            John Madden had some pretty successful games, I bet FlyingSquid is the ghost of John Madden!!!