Judi Dench, Keegan-Michael Key and Awkwafina are among the many “actors and influencers” whose voices could become part of Meta’s ai offering. ai-voice-projects”>Bloomberg reported on Friday. The company is reportedly working to close deals quickly so it can develop and showcase the new voices at its Meta Connect conference in September.
Specifically, at least one tool will be “a digital assistant product called MetaAI,” according to several anonymous sources in a technology/meta-ai-celebrity-voices.html”>New York Times reportMeta is negotiating with all major Hollywood talent agencies to secure the voices, Times writes. And can pay actors who sign “millions of dollars.” Goal ai-chatbots?irclickid=Qhj0UB3vmxyPU9B0tk3x1W6nUkFW7ewaT1mSSI0&irgwc=1&utm_source=affiliate&utm_medium=cpa&utm_campaign=10078-Skimbit+Ltd.&utm_term=businessinsider.com&rc=v4bmzs”>distributed equally large amounts to celebrities represented by the recently discontinued Meta ai chatbots from last year's Connect.
The contracts would reportedly be temporary, and actors could choose whether to renew them when the term ends. And the voices would be heard on Meta’s social media channels — seemingly anywhere Meta ai currently exists. That includes facebook and instagram, as well as on Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses, the outlet writes. Meta did not respond to a request for comment by press time.
But each of those implementations reeks of novelty, and, for me at least, they get old pretty quickly. Generative ai has proven undeniably better at mimicking a real human voice, though, as in OpenAI’s GPT-4o demo of a chatbot that sounded strikingly similar to Scarlett Johansson (which didn’t exactly make her happy). Hearing Awkwafina’s signature raspy tone will feel a lot less like a cheap trick if Meta ai’s version of the famous person can do everything the regular one does (though we won’t know if that’s how it will work if Meta announces the featured voices).
And I don't own a pair of Ray-Bans from Meta, but I'd be tempted if it meant I could get the ai Dame Judy Dench to tell me about, I don't know, the bridge I'm looking at. I like getting paid a negotiated fee for it, and besides, when she lies to me about that bridge, I can pretend the voice is actually M, Dench's. James Bond spy chief, trying to get me out of the way.
