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Voice clone of Anthony Bourdain prompts synthetic media ethics questions

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Re: Voice clone of Anthony Bourdain prompts synthetic media ethics questions

#101

Post by _jal »

tptacek wrote: post #94

I get why this is newsworthy, but I don't get why it's an ethical problem. How is it any different from hiring a really good Bourdain impersonator to read the email? Lots of celebrities have pitch-perfect impersonators; is this a thing we worried about when it wasn't AI doing the impersonation?

I think the question is about a "documentary" using synthesized voices presented as if they are recordings. You'd have the same issue with impersonation by a human; it is presenting one thing as something it is not.

Getting away from the specifics of this case, cheap impersonation of arbitrary individuals getting easier raises lots of questions... all those TV spy shows "voice print cloning" stuff becoming more real will make a lot of things involving non-face-to-face trust more interesting.

Re: Voice clone of Anthony Bourdain prompts synthetic media ethics questions

#102

Post by InvertedRhodium »

minsc__and__boo wrote: post #79
iandanforth wrote: post #43

This recently got worse, they claimed to have the OK from his widow. Turns out not so much ... https://twitter.com/OttaviaBourdain/status/14158894550057164...

They really need a way for someone to trademark their voice.

That seems like an impossible thing to do - how would you define "your voice" and how much would it have to be changed to no longer be considered "your voice"?

What would happen between two people that sound similar, or even identical, to our imperfect human senses?

Re: Voice clone of Anthony Bourdain prompts synthetic media ethics questions

#104

Post by slg »

hellbannedguy wrote: post #12

Out of all the celebrities, Bourdain would have viscerally despised this. He hated fake phoney people, or food. He hated when his production crew would stovepipe his bits. He hated a scene in Greese (I believe) where crew went out and bought squid, and threw them into the water to made the shoot better. I really liked Bourdain. He was one of the few celebrities that didn't seem to change with fame, or money. I watche…

>Out of all the celebrities, Bourdain would have viscerally despised this.

I would just like to point out the irony in this comment. You're speaking on behalf of a dead person in objection to someone else speaking on behalf of that person.

We can debate the ethics of this whole thing without trying to lay claim to what Bourdain would have thought.

Re: Voice clone of Anthony Bourdain prompts synthetic media ethics questions

#105

Post by serf »

patrickthebold wrote: post #88
andy_ppp wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On which timescale does something become historical? Are the Beatles historical, to you maybe not but possibly to your children? Where is the line you’re drawing? If I’m honest humans have never done the moral thinking, we largely just middle through and hope to get away with it.

Time doesn't matter as much as what is said. Fake Anthony Bourdain voice reading something he wrote seems fine to me, especially in the context of, say, a documentary. John Lennon's voice doing an ad for Vox amps seems in poor taste.

>John Lennon's voice doing an ad for Vox amps seems in poor taste.

the Bourdain documentary we're talking about was created in order to generate profit; it has box-office showings and advertisement campaigns.

A documentary is nice, but I fail to see how it's less of a product than Vox amplifiers, aside from some shallow altruism like "We're spreading the ideas of Bourdain", which could be done entirely without a profit scheme.

Re: Voice clone of Anthony Bourdain prompts synthetic media ethics questions

#107

Post by shkkmo »

andy_ppp wrote: post #82
briefcomment wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His widow did not provide consent [1]. [1] https://twitter.com/OttaviaBourdain/status/14158894550057164...

Cool, great to get that clarified but also good to see I didn’t invent the fact they claimed to have asked.

That wasn't the fact that you stated.

Re: Voice clone of Anthony Bourdain prompts synthetic media ethics questions

#108

Post by the-pigeon »

InvertedRhodium wrote: post #102
minsc__and__boo wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They really need a way for someone to trademark their voice.

That seems like an impossible thing to do - how would you define "your voice" and how much would it have to be changed to no longer be considered "your voice"? What would happen between two people that sound similar, or even identical, to our imperfect human senses?

Court precedence. Like pretty much everything else judges would have to define the lines over decades through court cases.

I'm not sure if it should go that way. I don't like the idea that someone like Disney could hire a voice actor once and then steal their voice forever. And it feels like we are headed down that path.

On the flip-side if you could trademark your voice, someone like Disney could buy up a bunch of trademarks and use them to sue somewhat similar voices. Kinda feels like a lose lose scenario.

Re: Voice clone of Anthony Bourdain prompts synthetic media ethics questions

#109

Post by amptorn »

tptacek wrote: post #98
amptorn wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just described a second, older/easier way of violating the same ethical norm of not lying about someone having said something they didn't.

Has it always been considered an ethical violation to have an impersonator read something a celebrity wrote? This can't be the first time that's happened.

I've no doubt that it's happened before... Maybe what's really changed here is that we no longer need to convince the human impersonator that this is an acceptable thing to do, because we can just have a machine do it.

Re: Voice clone of Anthony Bourdain prompts synthetic media ethics questions

#110

Post by 21echoes »

tptacek wrote: post #98
amptorn wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just described a second, older/easier way of violating the same ethical norm of not lying about someone having said something they didn't.

Has it always been considered an ethical violation to have an impersonator read something a celebrity wrote? This can't be the first time that's happened.

a documentary presenting an impersonator as the real person has always been unethical, yes. this one is newsworthy because it was done in a new way.
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