7 ms·

BBC chooses AI over human voiceover artist

63 points by ximeng 3y ago

ximeng 3y ago
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.
ratg13 3y ago
Didn’t BBC just learn this lesson with their Dr. Who advertising?
SuperNinKenDo 3y ago
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.
- fakedang 3y ago
  At least a private equity firm keeps to begging and courting HNW folks. The BBC on the other hand sends threatening letters forcing you to cough up for a TV license, even if you don't use your TV for anything except videogames (in spite of what the gummint says in its rulebook).
- nxobject 3y ago
  Because it's been consistently underfunded for years – tentpole current affairs/factual programmes like Newsnight have had shrinking resources for years, and commercially successful franchises like Dr. Who are often majority-funded by other broadcasters (Disney+ in this case.) [1] [1] https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2024/mar/27/russell-t-davies-says-end-of-bbc-is-undoubtedly-on-its-way https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2024/mar/27/russell...
- rjmunro 3y ago
  It's in the public interest because it saves money which can be used on other things.
  - SuperNinKenDo 3y ago
    That can be said of anything. At some point you have to actually spend money to make things better, else nothing you do is in the public interest.
- M2Ys4U 3y ago
  >I'm surprised this happened so quickly. That's because of the conservative government, imposing ideological cuts on the BBC. The BBC's budget was cut by 30% between 2010 and 2020 because of freezes to the license fee, withdrawing funding for the World Service and the liability for free licences for over 75s being shifted from the government on to the corporation.
- constantcrying 3y ago
  >What is the point of a State owned broadcaster if it operates like a private equity firm? Who knows? In my country most of the money given to public broadcasters is spent making absurd low quality entertainment and documentaries which YouTubers do easily better while having a millionth of the budget. For some reason they feel the need to compete with the rest of the industry, when the sole reason they exist is such that they don't have to do that.
slimebot80 3y ago
With AI producers will be able to remove all checkpoints and make mistakes at lightning speed.
LeroyRaz 3y ago
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).
pipes 3y ago
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.
- nxobject 3y ago
  What do you mean by "nice jobs"?
  - haltIncomplete 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - morkalork 3y ago
      Can't help but think their brains have been poisoned by Rupert Murdoch and Conrad Black. See the same in Canada with people crying foul over the CBC being taxpayer funded. As if the state ceding 100% of news media to private, corporate interests would be for the betterment of society.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - dingnuts 3y ago
        Free countries don't need their own Pravda. For every Murdoch there's a dozen other channels, and anyway, Facebook is worse for radicalization than any Murdoch property. The State has press releases, and the ability to command attention for speeches simply due to their monopoly on force. That's sufficient; there doesn't need to be a full time propaganda wing for the people to hear the perspective of the state
        DrScientist 3y ago
        You are confused about the role of the BBC. It's not there for state propaganda ( though that happens - as with any broadcaster ), it's mission is more parentalistic - ( Yep I've invented a word to cover maternalistic/paternalistic. ) Ask yourself - if the BBC was such a state machine - why do members of the government complain about it's output so much? It's there to lift the nation culturally, to create a British identity and social cohesion - to inform, educate, and entertain. To be a positive inspirational force. It's not a single entity, with a single voice - but a sum of it's employees. > For every Murdoch there's a dozen other channels, I'm not sure quantity is the best metric here....
vunderba 3y ago
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.
pimlottc 3y ago
Is there any background/context besides one tweeted image?
- saaaaaam 3y ago
  Well exactly. In the absence of any context or supporting detail it’s impossible to say what has actually happened here.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
unobatbayar 3y ago
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-are-you-using-AI-more-in-narration-Are-you-getting-rid-of-your-human-narrators https://support.blinkist.com/hc/en-us/articles/218022708-Why...
saaaaaam 3y ago
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.
matt3210 3y ago
Hard to beat free
bunbun69 3y ago
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?
- vouaobrasil 3y ago
  How I wish people had this attitude towards programmers: spend $15K per month on an AI programmer or have a better society without AI...
  - raincole 3y ago
    If AI could actually do what they are doing, programmers would be laid off at a rate never seen before. I mean never seen before in human history.
    - bleepblop 3y ago
      Man, do I have some bad news for you. These guys have been at it for a few years now: https://www.replicastudios.com/ https://www.replicastudios.com/ And the list is growing quickly.
  - acchow 3y ago
    How can we have a society without AI? How could this be implemented?
  - hombre_fatal 3y ago
    Look around, though. We do have this attitude towards programmers. The biggest (e.g. Copilot) and most hyped (e.g. Devin) tools in the AI space are tools for developing software such that Stack Overflow is dead and the skill floor is rising on being an employable software developer.
    - Intralexical 3y ago
      Y'all misread the comment. It seems like the last six words in it describe an incomprehensible concept or something…
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
constantcrying 3y ago
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.

63 points by ximeng 3y ago

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.

ratg13 3y ago

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

SuperNinKenDo 3y ago

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.

fakedang 3y ago
At least a private equity firm keeps to begging and courting HNW folks. The BBC on the other hand sends threatening letters forcing you to cough up for a TV license, even if you don't use your TV for anything except videogames (in spite of what the gummint says in its rulebook).
nxobject 3y ago
Because it's been consistently underfunded for years – tentpole current affairs/factual programmes like Newsnight have had shrinking resources for years, and commercially successful franchises like Dr. Who are often majority-funded by other broadcasters (Disney+ in this case.) [1] [1] https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2024/mar/27/russell-t-davies-says-end-of-bbc-is-undoubtedly-on-its-way https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2024/mar/27/russell...
rjmunro 3y ago
It's in the public interest because it saves money which can be used on other things.
- SuperNinKenDo 3y ago
  That can be said of anything. At some point you have to actually spend money to make things better, else nothing you do is in the public interest.
M2Ys4U 3y ago
>I'm surprised this happened so quickly. That's because of the conservative government, imposing ideological cuts on the BBC. The BBC's budget was cut by 30% between 2010 and 2020 because of freezes to the license fee, withdrawing funding for the World Service and the liability for free licences for over 75s being shifted from the government on to the corporation.
constantcrying 3y ago
>What is the point of a State owned broadcaster if it operates like a private equity firm? Who knows? In my country most of the money given to public broadcasters is spent making absurd low quality entertainment and documentaries which YouTubers do easily better while having a millionth of the budget. For some reason they feel the need to compete with the rest of the industry, when the sole reason they exist is such that they don't have to do that.

slimebot80 3y ago

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

LeroyRaz 3y ago

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).

pipes 3y ago

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.

nxobject 3y ago
What do you mean by "nice jobs"?
- haltIncomplete 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - morkalork 3y ago
    Can't help but think their brains have been poisoned by Rupert Murdoch and Conrad Black. See the same in Canada with people crying foul over the CBC being taxpayer funded. As if the state ceding 100% of news media to private, corporate interests would be for the betterment of society.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - dingnuts 3y ago
      Free countries don't need their own Pravda. For every Murdoch there's a dozen other channels, and anyway, Facebook is worse for radicalization than any Murdoch property. The State has press releases, and the ability to command attention for speeches simply due to their monopoly on force. That's sufficient; there doesn't need to be a full time propaganda wing for the people to hear the perspective of the state
      - DrScientist 3y ago
        You are confused about the role of the BBC. It's not there for state propaganda ( though that happens - as with any broadcaster ), it's mission is more parentalistic - ( Yep I've invented a word to cover maternalistic/paternalistic. ) Ask yourself - if the BBC was such a state machine - why do members of the government complain about it's output so much? It's there to lift the nation culturally, to create a British identity and social cohesion - to inform, educate, and entertain. To be a positive inspirational force. It's not a single entity, with a single voice - but a sum of it's employees. > For every Murdoch there's a dozen other channels, I'm not sure quantity is the best metric here....

vunderba 3y ago

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.

pimlottc 3y ago

Is there any background/context besides one tweeted image?

saaaaaam 3y ago
Well exactly. In the absence of any context or supporting detail it’s impossible to say what has actually happened here.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

unobatbayar 3y ago

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-are-you-using-AI-more-in-narration-Are-you-getting-rid-of-your-human-narrators https://support.blinkist.com/hc/en-us/articles/218022708-Why...

saaaaaam 3y ago

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.

matt3210 3y ago

Hard to beat free

bunbun69 3y ago

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?

vouaobrasil 3y ago
How I wish people had this attitude towards programmers: spend $15K per month on an AI programmer or have a better society without AI...
- raincole 3y ago
  If AI could actually do what they are doing, programmers would be laid off at a rate never seen before. I mean never seen before in human history.
  - bleepblop 3y ago
    Man, do I have some bad news for you. These guys have been at it for a few years now: https://www.replicastudios.com/ https://www.replicastudios.com/ And the list is growing quickly.
- acchow 3y ago
  How can we have a society without AI? How could this be implemented?
- hombre_fatal 3y ago
  Look around, though. We do have this attitude towards programmers. The biggest (e.g. Copilot) and most hyped (e.g. Devin) tools in the AI space are tools for developing software such that Stack Overflow is dead and the skill floor is rising on being an employable software developer.
  - Intralexical 3y ago
    Y'all misread the comment. It seems like the last six words in it describe an incomprehensible concept or something…

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

constantcrying 3y ago

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.