Hearing the deep voice of Sir Laurence Olivier during morning commute can be as potent as a caffeine kick while Judy Garland reading children’s novels can be soothing.

US-based AI company ElevenLabs said digitally produced celebrity voiceovers of deceased actors, including James Dean and Burt Reynolds, will find a place in the company’s newly launched Reader app (expected to become available in India on July 11 on the iOS store), which converts articles, PDF, e-books, newsletters or any text on your phone into “context-aware” voiceovers.

The company has deals in place with the estates of actors whose voices are being used but the financial details haven’t been disclosed. The move shows that Hollywood can be a goldmine for companies dealing with artificial intelligence as well as setting a precedent for licensing deals with celebrity estates.

Rudy Garland. Sourced by The Telegraph

ElevenLabs’ announcement comes at a time when generative AI is being used to create images and videos, and it is also making it easy to create a version of someone’s voice. Earlier in the year, ElevenLabs made headlines when its tools were reportedly used to create a fake robocall from US President Joe Biden.

A few weeks ago, OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, was in the crosshairs for synthetic voice generation that sounded “eerily similar” to that
of Scarlett Johansson.

The actor said in a statement that she was “shocked, angered and in disbelief” and had refused a partnership opportunity with OpenAI. The company was forced to hit pause on this particular voice, though its CEO Sam Altman said the voice was not Johansson’s.

In the case of Judy Garland’s voice, the matter is different. Liza Minnelli, the legendary actor’s daughter, said her family was excited to “see our mother’s voice available to the countless millions of people who love her”.

A person cannot copyright their own voice though it’s possible to copyright a recording. If there’s a licensing agreement, recordings can be used to train AI models.

“Adding them to our growing list of narrators marks a major step forward in our mission of making content accessible in any language and voice,” Dustin Blank, head of partnerships at ElevenLabs, wrote in a blog post.

Media companies too are using AI for voiceovers. For instance, NBC has announced that it is bringing an AI version of sportscaster Al Michaels back to the Olympics this summer. The sportscaster will be compensated.

The deal with ElevenLabs is the latest example of celebrity estates falling back on technology to generate money. Over the last decade, the likenesses of Michael Jackson and rapper Tupac have been projected as holograms at live shows after their deaths.

In April, over 200 artistes, including Billie Eilish, Kacey Musgraves and Jon Bon Jovi, signed an open letter organised by the non-profit Artist Rights Alliance calling on AI developers and technology companies to “cease the use of artificial intelligence to infringe upon and devalue the rights of human artistes”.

American actor James Dean. Getty Images

The audio AI startup ElevenLabs has also announced it is working with Time magazine and that the publication is implementing an embeddable “Audio Native” player, which automatically narrates written articles using AI-generated voices, on its website.