BBC chooses AI over human voiceover artist (opens in new tab)

What is the point of a State owned broadcaster if it operates like a private equity firm? How is this in the public interest? I'm surprised this happened so quickly.

Given I'm forced to pay for the BBC a fee for a service I don't use. I'd prefer they did it as cheaply as possible, maybe it will stop it getting even more expensive. The BBC's job isn't to create nice jobs.

spend $5K/month on some voiceover artist or a few cents on AI that barely makes mistakes and can be programmed (with hints) to correct their speech?

Is there any background/context besides one tweeted image?

I’ve seen this tweet doing the rounds but it seems strange. The way the text in the email is presented is odd. Why is there a cursor midway through a sentence. Why is it forwarded text? Why is there no sender information? Why is the subject line the voice actor’s name?

It looks to me like an agent has forwarded something from a third party production company working for the BBC.

There are at least five different possibilities here:

1. The production company is working on spec or to develop a proof of concept piece of content that is not going to be broadcast so they are using AI voice to flesh out that proof of concept.

2. A production assistant sending this weirdly formatted email has got the wrong end of the stick and sent an email referencing AI voice having misunderstood something.

3. The BBC is actually using AI voice. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it is for broadcast or public facing use.

4. The BBC is using AI voice for broadcast/public facing use and Equity (the performers’ union) will call out its members to strike.

5. The email is fake.

With no further context it’s impossible to say which of these is most likely. But in the absence of any further detail - particularly context from the author of the tweet or sender info - even partially obfuscated - there’s enough doubt to need that further context before people start screaming and wailing about AI destroying jobs.

If this isn’t happening now, it will happen in six months. And if it doesn’t happen in six months it will happen at some point in the near future.

Voice actors, session musicians, anyone providing a “commodity performance” need to prepare themselves for a world where the majority of work evaporates or changes and only remarkable performances stand out and have value beyond what can be delivered by AI.

I think the mission of the BBC is mainly to serve the audience rather than artists. Hence they presumably felt using AI would enable better content, e.g. through cost saving, or faster development cycles.

Artist's rights, livelihoods, and incentives should all be protected. This protection should probably come from good regulation of AI, and not us merely asking or expecting corporations or entities like the BBC to conflict with their primary goals (without government or industry regulation forcing them to comply to a clearly articulated standard).

Sara is an actress with years of experience in musicals including in Lindon’s West End. She recently posted on Twitter that she’d lost an opportunity with the BBC because they have decided to use an AI-generated voice instead.

With AI producers will be able to remove all checkpoints and make mistakes at lightning speed.

Blinkist has also started using AI narration to scale their content, I couldn't tell the difference...

https://support.blinkist.com/hc/en-us/articles/218022708-Why...

Color me unsurprised. The VA business has only gotten more competitive as time has progressed - the majority of VA work is surprisingly just close to the natural sounding voice of the VA themselves. (Rarely is a cartoonish or outlandish voice required).

TTS systems like ElevenLabs, etc. are going to heavily disrupt the industry in the next few years particularly with voice-to-voice mapping, e.g. regular John Doe quickly records the line in an angry voice, "THESE PRETZELS ARE MAKING ME THIRSTY!", then maps the emotion/inflection onto the desired TTS voice model.

VA licensing will also become a thing but plenty of major studios that would require hundreds of voices for video games and other things don't have to license known voices at all, they can just create generate brand new ones and pay zero licensing fees.

It is very clear that being a voice artist as a career is soon dead. Current AI is almost good enough, all you need is a single company doing good tooling around it (e.g. telling the model what parts to emphasize and what tone to use) and you replaced an expensive human with an extremely cheap AI.

Didn’t BBC just learn this lesson with their Dr. Who advertising?

Hard to beat free