Double trouble: When radio people discover their AI clones

It sounds like a sinister game of whack-a-mole.

You’ve just dealt with an AI-generated clone of yourself, then another one pops up. And another.

This is what has happened to Jack Post (main photo) from The Christian O’Connell Show on Melbourne’s Gold 104.3.

About a month ago, Jack says he discovered a sports betting Instagram account was using his voice. His fake voice, that is.

“I did not voice this ad,” Jack shared on air this week.

Then, someone alerted Jack that a furniture company was using his voice for an instructional video.

Jack says he emailed the company and was told “We’re sorry. We didn’t know. We subscribe to this website where you can use any AI voices, and yours is just the ‘Australian’ voice that they offer you.”

Sure enough, on further investigation, Jack discovered a computer-generated voice so closely resembling his own, it was almost impossible to tell the difference.

On reflection, Jack says “I think I know why I’m kind of the perfect person to steal the voice from. It’s because there’s so many hours of me talking on podcasts, but I’m not a familiar enough voice that they’d steal a celebrity’s voice.”

“They wouldn’t go after Hamish and Andy, because that’s too obvious.”

Sharing his story on the show, Jack told Christian O’Connell and Patrina Jones “I don’t know what to do now. Anyone can go onto this site, subscribe for free, and use this voice.”

“This is the thing,” said Patrina. “It has so many ramifications for our industry, and that’s why you need to take a stand.”

It must be a very unsettling feeling to know there’s another version of you out there. One over which you seemingly have no control.

Yet, we hear of it happening more and more to people across radio, television and beyond.

Earlier this year, TV news legend Sandra Sully expressed her alarm after hearing a voice – identical to hers – reading a headline on a true crime podcast.

Whilst the podcast creators do state up front that Sandra’s voice is a replica, she hadn’t given it her approval.

Sandra said it serves as a warning: If she is considered a trusted voice in news, how that can that be manipulated? And for what purpose? Good, bad … or evil?

It’s scary stuff.

The Australian Association of Voice Actors has already raised concerns about the rising threat of ‘voice theft’ in Australia as a result of Artificial Intelligence.

Last month, a Senate Committee heard stronger government regulation is urgently needed.

Voice actors told the hearing that ‘strong arm tactics’ were being used to force voice actors to sign contracts, allowing for their voice to be turned into a digital clone to be reused in the future.

AAVA President Simon Kennedy told the committee: “Productions are dangling the work that we need to pay rent, to feed our families and prepare for our retirement as bait to coerce us into giving consent for them to create our digital replacements.”

Further afield, actor Stephen Fry issued his own warning against AI after discovering his voice had been cloned and used to narrate a historical documentary.

Fry told Fortune magazine “I said not one word of that – it was a machine.”

Fry says his narration of the seven volumes of the Harry Potter books was used to create an AI version of his voice.

“I sent it to my agents on both sides of the Atlantic, and they went ballistic – they had no idea such a thing was possible.”

Robin Williams’ daughter Zelda took to social media, slamming AI cloning of her famous father, who died in 2014.

“These recreations are, at their very best, a poor facsimile of greater people, but at their worst, a horrendous Frankensteinian monster, cobbled together from the worst bits of everything this industry is, instead of what it should stand for.”

The question is: When does our industry draw the line? Or has the AI horse already bolted?