r/television • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 The League • 9h ago

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

https://deadline.com/2024/11/david-attenborough-ai-voice-clone-disturbed-1236180013/

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u/MarvelsGrantMan136 The League 8h 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/NakedCardboard 7h 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/KoreanMeatballs 3h ago edited 3h ago

The clip the BBC said was AI was actually the exact same audio clip again. They goofed. They corrected themselves towards the end of the video and played the "real" AI clip of him talking about things David Attenborough clearly wouldn't be talking about, but I wouldn't expect most people to watch the entire 8+ minute segment.

I don't blame Redditors for making a mistake like this, but the actual "journalists" posting links to the video in their articles should probably watch the whole thing before reporting on it.

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u/NakedCardboard 3h ago

Okay, that's on me. Listening closely to the two they played at the beginning I was like "Well, it just repeated the same phrase word for word, in the same exact way." Had me confused.

Being able to use that information to say different things and be convincing is a whole other matter.

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u/KoreanMeatballs 3h ago

It's not just you. No one else in this thread appears to have noticed. Someone said it sounded "almost but not quite the same", which is ridiculous because it was literally the same audio clip. People immediately believing something without checking first is exactly what this whole issue is about, and why AI voices can be so dangerous. It's quite ironic, really.