Anthony Bourdain’s cloned voice in documentary raises questions about deepfakes and ethics
- Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain includes dialogue made with voice cloning software that purports to include the TV host, who died in 2018
- Viewers went online to express their displeasure and concern about misuse of the AI technology to make Bourdain appear to speak something he had written
The revelation that a documentary filmmaker used voice-cloning software to make the late chef Anthony Bourdain say words he never spoke has drawn criticism amid ethical concerns about use of the powerful technology.
The movie Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain was released in the US last week, and mostly features real footage of the beloved celebrity chef and globe-trotting television host, who died in 2018. But its director, Morgan Neville, said that a snippet of dialogue was created using artificial intelligence technology.
That’s renewed a debate about the future of voice-cloning technology, not just in the entertainment world, but also in politics and a fast-growing commercial sector dedicated to transforming text into realistic-sounding human speech.
“Unapproved voice cloning is a slippery slope,” said Andrew Mason, the founder and chief executive of voice generator Descript, in a blog post. “As soon as you get into a world where you’re making subjective judgment calls about whether specific cases can be ethical, it won’t be long before anything goes.”
Until last week, most of the public controversy around such technologies focused on the creation of hard-to-detect deepfakes using simulated audio and/or video and their potential to fuel misinformation and political conflict.