Maybe I'm getting old, but, I have to say, seeing stuff like "Alan Turing™" (a legend and titan of computing history, followed by a ™) really bums me out. I don't believe for one second that any of the deceased people listed here would want their likeness emulated in such a hollow, mechanical, and inhuman way for all of eternity.

> I don't believe for one second that any of the deceased people listed here would want their likeness emulated in such a hollow, mechanical, and inhuman way for all of eternity.

Would the mummy in the Egyptian exhibition want their lifeless body shown to the public for all of eternity? Isn't this how the world always works: once you are dead, nobody really cares about you except maybe your trust and immediate descendants.

The mummy example is interesting, but we're not trying to reanimate mummies in an artificial way so I'm not sure it poses the same issue. There's also an educational and historical aspect with mummies that is missing here.

This also allows for the creation of a kind of "anti-history", where someone could create a fictional history for nefarious purposes.

In fact, a common undercurrent I see with many AI use cases is accelerating the breakdown of trust in society. You can no longer trust anything you read, see, or hear.

blame their heirs I guess?

absolutely. I felt total disgust. 'Lana Turner (tm)' takes all of the humanity out of the person and reduces them down to an IP and it's gross.

An enormous bummer of a fact is that Majel Barrett, who was the voice of the computer on Star Trek (along with a number of other roles), did phonetic voice recordings specifically to reproduce her voice, yet nobody has used those recordings to do so. I'd love to see her on this list.

You mean Lwaxana Troi, Daughter of the Fifth House, Holder of the Sacred Chalice of Riix, Heir to the Holy Rings of Betazed?

No, they meant Nurse Chapel.

Or Lady Morella, the psychic third wife of Centauri Emperor Turhan.

There's plenty of open source tools out there that you can use to do this. Why wait for someone else to make something that you're passionate about?

I'd personally want to hear new voices, not more of the same. I wonder if products like this take away from the opportunity for new talent to arise.

They have hundreds of new voices in their library

Of varying quality; I am not at all convinced by their "Boston" or "Yorkshire" accents.

Won’t this just lead to these iconic voices becoming a commodity and being played everywhere and losing their value?

It makes sense to allow people to license their own voice on a per project basis.

Voices of dead actors? Feels wrong.

These are not all iconic voices, people definitely but what about:

Bootsy Collins, Snoop Dogg, Gilbert Gottfried , Arnie, Christopher Walken, Matt Berry....

Imagine the cast of Futurama voice acting the Bhagavad-Gita, or Vincent price reading twilight, this is the cutting edge shit the world needs.

The Eleven Labs list seems to be almost all deceased, if not retired. This is likely easier than licensing the voice of someone actively selling it already. For the others in your list that match this criteria, probably just a matter of demand.

Michael Caine? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFIQIpC5_wY

Classic shovel mentality.

> Request licensing for ...

Translation: "We'll be your middle man..."

I find it hard to believe they already have the 'Ok' from Maya Angelou. Maybe I'm wrong.

Agreed.

Regardless of getting the "ok" or not, this use of AI just feels morbid.

Yikes

This is kind of disgusting. I hope they're pushed out of business for this gross violation of the dead. The families and estates of the dead should also be ashamed for trying to ride that corpse for a few more dollars.

I'm kinda weirded out that there are sibling comments that think this is okay.

I, and presumably my genes, would be very pleased if my descendants could benefit more from my work today.

I’ll bet these are licensing deals with the families and estates of the actors. These synthetic voices will provide ongoing income, long after the actors are gone.

I understand that James Earl Jones licensed his voice to Disney for future portrayals of Darth Vader.

Gross.