David Attenborough, the world-famous naturalist with arguably the best-loved voice in Britain, has said he is “profoundly disturbed” to hear that AI websites in the US have been cloning his voice.
In recent weeks, it has emerged that online outlets in America have been using the voice of Attenborough, 98, to deliver partisan news bulletins about topics including the US election and the war in Ukraine.
Attenborough told the BBC he was shocked to hear of his voice being impersonated, saying: “Having spent a lifetime time trying to speak what I believe to be the truth, I am profoundly disturbed to find that these days my identity is being stolen by others and greatly object to them using it to say what they wish.”
The documentarian is not the first to be left dismayed after his voice was seemingly impersonated without his consent.
In May this year, actor Scarlett Johansson spoke out against OpenAI after the company used a voice that “eerily” resembled the star’s in its new ChatGPT product.
The actor said she had been approached by OpenAI nine months before to voice its AI system but declined for “personal reasons”. She said she was “shocked” and “angered” when she heard the voice they ended up using, which “sounded so eerily similar to mine that my closest friends and news outlets could not tell the difference”.
OpenAI received so much criticism over the move that it eventually pulled the voice.
Before it pulled the voice, the company had denied that the voice, which they called “Sky”, was based on Johansson, publishing a blogpost about Sky’s creation and claimed that the company values the voice acting industry.
“Sky’s voice is not an imitation of Scarlett Johansson but belongs to a different professional actress using her own natural speaking voice,” the blogpost read. “To protect their privacy, we cannot share the names of our voice talents.”
Attenborough is currently lending his voice, consensually, to the BBC series Asia, a seven-part series that was filmed over four years, and explores the wildlife and natural wonders of the world’s largest continent.
