People are using AI to make the late YouTuber and StarCraft commentator TotalBiscuit’s voice say whatever they want, including one transphobic statement Motherboard has listened to, and yet another example of how AI voice models can be abused without consent.
John Bain, who was better known as TotalBiscuit to his millions of followers, died in 2018 from bowel cancer at the age of 33. John Bain’s widow, Genna Bain, mentioned the AI versions of TotalBiscuit on Twitter.
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“Today was fun. Being faced with making a choice of scrubbing all of my late husband’s lifetime of content from the internet,” she said on Twitter. “Apparently people think it’s okay to use his library to train voice AIs to promote their social commentary and political views.”
TotalBiscuit’s YouTube channel consists of more than 3,000 videos posted over 15 years. Creating an AI voice model that can then be made to say whatever one types in only requires a few minutes of audio. Bain’s fans sounded the alarm about the possible content scrub on Reddit, but his fan community pointed out it had archived all of his videos more than two years ago.
Bain gained popularity on YouTube as a game critic around 2011, and was also known for supporting some aspects of the gamergate controversy, namely claims about unethical practices in the games press. His distinct voice and dry humor helped him gain a large audience. It’s that voice that people are using AI to replicate, against the wishes of his wife. In 2014, Bain revealed that he was battling bowel cancer.
In one video viewed by Motherboard, an AI model of TotalBiscuit described the lifecycle of a locust. In another, a version of TotalBiscuit’s voice bereft of his distinct British accent reads a line from right-wing troll Matt Walsh’s What Is a Woman documentary.
Artificial intelligence generated voice clips have gone viral after the beta launch of a program called ElevenLabs. The program allows people to train an AI voice model and make it say whatever they want. You might have seen the videos of Joe Rogan and Ben Shapiro arguing over video games, or watched clips of Joe Biden and Donald Trump playing Overwatch. But there’s a darker side.
4chan users have used the program to create deepfake audio clips of celebrities saying slurs. One thread included Emma Watson reading sections of Mein Kampf and Mary Elizabeth Winstead using transphobic slurs and repeating 4chan memes. One of these threads included the Americanized version of TotalBiscuit quoting Matt Walsh.
Genna Bain did not respond to Motherboard’s request for comment.
