There’s a website out there offering voice cloning services, where they will essentially re-create the voice of any person, living or dead, so their voice can live on forever. Sir David Attenborough, one of the all-time great nature documentarians who’s given voice to the natural world for decades, was presented with one such AI-generated version of his voice and found it disgusting. This man’s undying hope for the human race is truly a miracle.
The 98-year-old Attenborough sent a statement to BBC News after it played a segment on Sunday featuring an AI recreation of Attenborough’s voice alongside his actual voice to compare the two.
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His statement reads, “having spent a lifetime 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 whatever they wish.”
The website (or sites) from which the BBC got the AI voice was not specified, yet one of them then released a reply to Attenborough using the Attenborough AI voice. I want to copy and paste that now but just know that it reads like a giant “Fuck You” to one of the greatest nature documentarians and environmental activists who simply does not want his voice being bastardized.
The response basically tells him to go fuck himself in his own voice, because everybody in the AI industry is a petulant shithead who doesn’t want to be told what to do no matter how disgusting their actions are. They will be the end of us all, whether it be a big Terminator-style apocalypse or the slow degradation of society at the hands of crushing waves of AI-generated misinformation.
“Let’s set the record straight. Unless Mr. Attenborough has been moonlighting for us in secret and under an assumed name with work authorization in the United States, he is not on our payroll,” it said. “I am not David Attenborough. We are both male, British voices for sure. However, I am not David Attenborough, for anyone out there who may be confused.”
Ugh. The vast majority of people in the AI industry need to get punched in the face as hard as possible.
