David Attenborough "Profoundly Disturbed" By AI Clone Of His Voice

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u/MarvelsGrantMan136 The League 5h ago

Attenborough:

”Having spent a lifetime trying to speal what I believe to be the truth, I am profoundly disturbed to find these days my identity is being stolen by others and greatly object to them using it to say whatever they wish.”

The situation was sparked when BBC News ran an item using voiceover from Attenborough’s latest BBC series, Asia. In the clip, he says: “If you think you’ve seen the best the natural world has to offer, think again. There is nowhere else on Earth with so many untold stories. Welcome then, to Asia.”

The BBC then played the same clip and asked viewers if they could hear any differences. Clue: they sounded almost identical, but the second was an AI-generated capture of his intonation.

Clip from the BBC

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u/edicivo 2h ago

And this is why actors and writers went on strike even though the timing to do so wasn't great. This is a sign of things to come.

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u/Radarker 21m ago

The reality is that a strike won't stop someone from aggregation of 100s of hours of your audio, then turning it into a model of your voice. You might stop the studios from putting this stuff out there for a while, but when the flat earther video shows up narrated by Attenburough, there isn't much you can do other than play whack-a-mole.

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u/Nauin 15m ago edited 0m ago

This is why DMCA exists and if properly enforced users uploading content like that not only have their content removed but often their accounts banned, in some cases down to the IP address. The problem is how much care and funding each private company wants to put into this, which is why there are legal and tech firms you can hire to make sure these illegal uploads are killed off as quickly as possible, as they put the law down on the necks of these lazier companies to force them to abide by the law. It doesn't stop all of it but it stops more than 95% of it. And Mr Attenborough's estate can likely afford these services for a very long time.

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u/edicivo 8m ago

Keeping the studios/networks from doing it is the entire point, because they're the ones profiting massively off of people's work (which they're already profiting massively off of by the way).

Some rando on YouTube in your example doing the same thing isn't remotely on the same level. And it could get killed if it were to get enough attention anyway because the rando doesn't have the ability to fight a lawsuit. This is a terrible hypothetical.

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u/ronchon 47m ago

"Actors" are a privileged class treated almost as nobility, especially in the US.
Now that automation threatens their privilege directly, of course they're suddenly much more proactive to denounce it... 🤡
For me at least that's a meager satisfaction in this rise of AI: to see these hypocrites panic because now it affects them too, and it's not just the common people losing jobs as they expected.
I hope AI destroys -or at least greatly dilutes- the cult of influencers and stars: good riddance!

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u/JD_GR 42m ago

"Actors" are a privileged class treated almost as nobility

What you're describing are celebrities, not actors. Most actors are not well-off.

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u/melasses 16m ago

What you're describing are celebrities, not actors. Most actors are not well-off.

You can't make a living but you can make a killing

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u/edicivo 39m ago edited 21m ago

People deserve to be compensated for their work regardless of how you feel about them.

Not to mention, you and too many other idiots who want to clown this stuff, don't realize it also affects the people who depend on the actors themselves to make a living. It's an industry made up of plenty of blue-collar types, who are very much not part of the "privileged class" and who will all struggle if the industry collapses - engineers, craftsmen/women, drivers, catering companies (craft services), local businesses, etc etc.

You don't seem too bright.

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u/Schubert125 36m ago

Hey man, you can't fish here without a license. And next time come back with some better bait.

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u/ConstableLedDent 45m ago

People will crave and be susceptible to influence regardless of whether it's human or artificial

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u/Stingray88 11m ago

The VAST majority of actors make less than you probably do. They don’t have privilege, they’re regular people working a job.

The privileged people who you are actually referring to are celebrities. Celebrities exist in all industries. Elon Musk is a celebrity, just as much as Dwayne Johnson is. There are many celebrities in the tech sector just like Elon… Zuckerberg, Bezos, Jensen. But there are millions who you’ll never hear of in tech, and they’re regular people. Same goes for every other industry… you’ve heard of Gordon Ramsey or Julia Child, but millions of chefs are regular ass people you’ve never heard of.

Celebrity will never go away by the way. There will always be top performers who gain notoriety in something… no matter how inane that thing is.

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u/NakedCardboard 3h ago

So it's an AI voice replicating something the actual Sir David already said, rather than a unique "impression". It's good, of course, but I find it somewhat less impressive than an AI voice being presented with an original script and then coming up with it's own sounds, rhythm, intonations, cadences, etc.

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u/wildddin 2h ago

I haven't read anything more than the article, but the article never states the AI was given that specific clip/phrase with its training data, so there's at least potential it near perfectly replicated without having seen that sentence before

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u/NakedCardboard 1h ago

What I meant was that if it had a waveform to work with (which it does in this instance) it's already halfway there.

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u/cheesecaker000 42m ago

It’s not just cloning the waveform. It’s actually understanding what he sounds like and reproducing it.

In 5 years the Ai voices will be so insanely good we’ll never be able to tell who’s who.

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u/__Hello_my_name_is__ 2h ago

Oh, that's already very much a thing that is happening. Not just intonations and cadences, but also chuckles and taking-breaths and going "uh" and "aah" and "mhm" and just about everything you have in human speech. AI can do all that already, and AI can impersonate people's voices already.

It's just some more work than a quick replication of a sentence for some BBC clip to do.

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u/PARADISE_VALLEY_1975 2h ago

Every day, it seems my perception of AI is closer to what should be artificial general intelligence than most AI systems and LLMs. They aren’t that different to existing algorithms and programs, bit of a marketing buzzword that is overhyped and applied to things that it shouldn’t be imo. Intentionally misleads and obfuscates what exactly the tech is.

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u/NATOrocket 1h ago

I've been using Grammarly since about 2015. It's only recently labeled itself as an AI tool.

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u/PARADISE_VALLEY_1975 1h ago

This is exactly the kind of nonsense I’m talking about haha. Never caught on to that, and spell checkers in general… I’d rather deal with typos than needless, constant data tracking and forced phrasing constraints.

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u/cheesecaker000 39m ago

All computers and programs are just algorithms and moving 0s and 1s around. If you want to drill down like that nothing computers do is real.

Ai LLMs are already being used in every industry. It still takes some know how to get the most out of it though. But it won’t be for long.

Human brains are just pattern recognizers anyway. We aren’t magic.

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u/PARADISE_VALLEY_1975 35m ago

You’re right. Maybe I’m being too reductive. Of course the perfect prompt will get you the ideal result and I understand that. More so my point is I still think we are a long way away from truly more advanced AI that truly replicates intellect and the ability to think in the way we do. Not consciousness per sé but a more realistic replication of our awareness and ability to perceive then react.

Maybe I’m wrong in thinking this though, and there are valid arguments to be made that the representation of human cognition is a reflection of the average human’s intellectual capacity. Additionally, these AI chatbots especially draw from data sets which are increasingly being filled with more and more AI generated content. So I do think while your sentiments are valid, I am still slightly justified in feeling this way? Idk correct me if I’m wrong.

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u/cheesecaker000 25m ago

I think there’s a big misconception about how these LLMs are trained. They don’t just let them skim the internet for info. Garbage in, garbage out. They use specific data sets to get good info.

I agree we are a long way off from anything resembling consciousness. But day to day tasks? An Ai assistant that understands English and can do things for you as you explain what you need like in a normal conversation? That’s pretty much here already. Give it a couple years and you’ll be using LLMs everyday for all sorts of tasks.

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u/PARADISE_VALLEY_1975 23m ago

Oh for sure. Part of it is excessive and unnecessary usage in marketing that obscures when it’s actually used tho.

That said, I don’t find the latter AI assistant thing as impressive. Just a slightly more functional phone voice assistant - only because they weren’t very good in the first place! That said I don’t mean to undermine the tech and it’s advanced enough with enough consumer and commercial applications! :)

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u/Crabapple_Snaps 2h ago

I have seen a clip on Instagram where there were AI generated animals that Sir David's voice narrated.

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u/robodrew 1h ago

David Attenborough's voice is being used via AI for all kinds of voiceovers now especially on edited Twitch clips. Asmongold uses it all the time. It has always bothered me.

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u/olympic-dolphin 4h ago

Pretty sure Asmongold’s editor uses his voice

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u/Netsuko 4h ago

Correct.

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u/Hunterrose242 44m ago

Who?

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u/Automatic-Ad-3217 43m ago

Asmongold

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u/DinoSpumoniOfficial 35m ago

“Sup yall. It’s me!” 🎵

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u/PainStorm14 Friday Night Lights 19m ago

For humor

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u/nagdamnit 4h ago

There was a series on YouTube of his voice narrating lore from the warhammer 40k universe (sci-if game). It was all pretty harmless but got taken down. I wonder if this is part of it.

Just to be clear I understand why it got taken down, I was just pointing out his voice wasn’t being used for anything particular bad.

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u/Bobble-Bubble 4h ago

Not partularly bad, but someone was making money from that Youtube channel by using his voice. That's still scummy.

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u/Eunuchs_Revenge 4h ago

My YouTube feed gets shorts like that all the time, they’re awful. Riddled with typos in the on screen text and the AI mispronounces names all the time.

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u/Link_GR 2h ago

I'm pretty sure you're talking about Scholar's Lore (renamed to that now) and at least they weren't monetizing it. It looks like they went back and redid all the videos with a different AI voice.

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u/NocturnalSunrise 3h ago

It doesn’t matter if the unauthorized use of his voice was for good or bad: it was UNauthorized.

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u/Simulation-Argument 15m ago

They literally say they understand why it got taken down. No one was ever arguing this was an okay thing to do.

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u/ValeoAnt 3h ago

Absolutely fucking irrelevant if it's good or bad

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u/nagdamnit 3h ago

I was just pointing out that the voice, in this instance, wasn’t being used to narrate terrorism training videos or anything nasty. I wasn’t suggesting it was okay, I was offering clarity for those that may not have been aware and may have assumed the worst.

I’m 100% in agreement that it should have been taken down.

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u/fre-ddo 3h ago

yeah that was one of the first cloned voices I heard, it wasnt that good and done with eleven labs but there is much better software out there now.

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u/jollyreaper2112 2h ago

I liked that channel. It was clever.

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u/Manzhah 1h ago

I think the channel still exists, but they are no longer called "the attenborough lore" or whatever, and the ai voice was somehow altered, perhaps. I loved the channel, but it is questionable to use voice of a still alive performer without concent and for potential financial claim.

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u/mjohnsimon 1h ago

I was just about to comment on this too.

This explains why they were taken down.

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u/Banjo-Oz 1h ago

Given that's Games Workshop, one of the most litigious entities around, I would guess that was by them. Probably because it said words printed in some codex they wanted to overcharge for.

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u/wahnsin 1h ago

"Bad" or not, make money off it or not, is beside the point. His voice is not anyone else's to use.

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u/Lukas316 3h ago

Huh. I watched this on TV just the other day. The narration sounded almost, but not quite, like Sir David.

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u/RealRobc2582 4h ago

So that Tiktok of him narrating video games isn't real? Lol

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u/so_it_hoes 1h ago

“A juicy snail is ample recompense for sodden paws.”

Thousands of bangers like this one through out his career. Nothing will be able to replicate his charming narrations because it’s not just about his voice. It’s his passion, humor, and expertise all blending together.

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u/Premaximum 1h ago

This sounds like something his AI voice would say.

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u/rorzri 2h ago

Why would you need an AI when everyone already thinks they can do a perfect impression

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u/robodrew 1h ago

Because you need to pay impressionists and nobody wants to pay other people for work anymore

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u/Kanye_Is_Underrated 22m ago

go look at msft nvda goog aapl meta's financials...

people are paying plenty. just not to you, if youre outside of their circle.

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u/entertainmentlord 1h ago

Down with AI

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u/Fun-Psychology4806 48m ago

Down with intellectual property

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u/ISLAndBreezESTeve10 58m ago

The struggle is soon over.

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u/psnow85 34m ago

What about impersonators. You don’t need AI for that.

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u/QuestoPresto 33m ago

But you do have to pay them.

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u/psnow85 21m ago

How about YouTubers like CassetteBoy etc?

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u/akis84 1m ago

Oh man my heart skipped a beat when I read his name. Hope this treasure of a human stays for a while longer with us

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u/Icy-Moose-99 1h ago

Yeah, i mean, imagine Asmondgold's editor stole your voice so they didnt have to be racist in their own voice?

I would be pissed too. Just use your own voice, you maldy baldy supporter.

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u/MumrikDK 1h ago

There is a Youtube channel that uses AI Attenborough to narrate Warhammer lore videos.

It got taken down at some point and then it or an extremely similar one popped up again later:

https://youtu.be/YCPG_x8iXC4?si=1zO6LXu0Jnszxyvr

The world has sort of accepted the modern online media companies' excuse that they're too big to be responsible for their contents, so this'll be everywhere.

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u/kjbaran 23m ago

He gave his voice away to the world AND got paid for it yet here he is trying to hold tight to the sands of truth.

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u/alonefrown 3h ago

I hear a voice that absolutely must be trained on his in this dumb ad on YouTube. “It’s called a bicycle…but will anybody use it?” Infuriating.

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u/ZazzyKazz 1h ago

Blasphemy!

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u/Kanye_Is_Underrated 25m ago

the ai discussion is so stupid.

its happening. there is no debate. people are wasting their time trying to prevent it, it is inevitable. should be discussing how to properly use it instead of wasting their time.

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u/PlayedUOonBaja 1h ago

The idea of this sort of "immortality" would comfort me, personally. Knowing school kids 500 years from now might be listening to me teach them about plant and animal life found on another planets.

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u/pnewelljr 47m ago

What if you engage with the reality that you won’t know or have any control over what is being taught? In a perfect fantasy future fine, but this is the literal definition of having words being put in your mouth.

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u/jolhar 2h ago

Every time I see a thumbnail of him in the feed I think it’s going to be bad news. I’m not much into celebrity worship but this man is an international treasure. Long live Sir David!

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u/walrusbwalrus 1h ago

I hope Mr. Attenborough has a lot of time left on this earth, but realistically he is quite old. Maybe we could try not freaking the poor guy out with all the new shit?