Morgan Freeman slams AI voice replicas
Morgan Freeman has been taking legal action against those replicating his voice using AI without permission.
Morgan Freeman has been taking legal action against those replicating his voice without permission.
The 88-year-old actor is known for his distinctive deep tone and he is less than impressed by AI technology that has been cloning his speech without permission, accusing those behind such ventures of "robbing" him.
He told The Guardian newspaper: "I'm a little PO'd, you know.
I'm like any other actor: Don't mimic me with falseness. I don't appreciate it, and I get paid for doing stuff like that, so if you're gonna do it without me, you're robbing me."
The Now You See Me Now You Don't actor suggested his legal representatives have been taking action against "many" imitators.
He added: "Well, I tell you, my lawyers have been very, very busy."
The Shawshank Redemption star worked hard to maximise the quality of his voice when he was at college under the guidance of a tutor named Robert Whitman.
He said: "If you're going to speak, speak distinctly, hit your final consonants, and do exercises to lower your voice.
"Most people's voices are higher than they would be normally if they knew how to relax it. He taught that sort of thing."
Morgan also condemned Tilly Norwood, an AI-generated performer who sparked controversy last month following reports talent agencies were considering signing her up as a client.
He said: "Nobody likes her because she's not real and that takes the part of a real person, so it's not going to work out very well in the movies or in television.
"The union's job is to keep actors acting, so there's going to be that conflict."
Meanwhile, the Seven actor admitted he almost never became an actor because he considered a career as a fighter pilot instead.
He said: “I never had moments of self-doubt about it but, when I was a teenager, I was fascinated by flying so, when I graduated from high school, I went into the air force with the idea at the time of becoming a fighter pilot.
“That lasted until I got into the cockpit of a trainer and had that epiphany that ‘this is not what you want’. It turns out, I was just in San Bernardino, at Norton Air Force Base, being discharged and only a 45-minute bus ride from Los Angeles, California. Fate is the hunter.”
Acting union SAG-AFTRA have previously condemned Tilly Norwood's existence.
They said in a statement: "To be clear, 'Tilly Norwood' is not an actor, it's a character generated by a computer program that was trained on the work of countless professional performers — without permission or compensation.
"It has no life experience to draw from, no emotion and, from what we've seen, audiences aren't interested in watching computer-generated content untethered from the human experience."
