‘We don’t want Sarah’: Actress learns she’s been replaced by AI

Stage and voice actress Sarah Poyser was unexpectedly told she was being replaced by artificial intelligence, the Mamma Mia star said Tuesday.

Poyser relayed the text of an email she received from an unnamed production company saying her voice services were no longer needed by the BBC because the broadcaster had given permission to use an AI-generated voice instead.

“Sorry for the delay,” said the message. “We got permission from here [the] Let's use the BBC's AI-generated voice so we don't need Sarah anymore.

“Worrying,” she commented with a sad face emoji. She tagged Twitter accounts for the BBC Arts Channel and Equity, the UK trade union representing professional actors and other creative workers.

Fans and allies reacted to Poyzer's plight with a mix of anger and sympathy.

Artist and media personality Nathan Wyburn responded on Twitter: “This has happened to me and my art projects many times.” “I'm sorry this happened to you!”

Composer Rob Lord added: “It's terrible. “Something needs to be done about this ASAP, starting with hiring you for this job!”

Poyser representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Decrypt. The BBC confirmed to Deadline that it will use AI to narrate a “highly sensitive documentary” about a contributor who is “nearing the end of his life and can't speak now”.

The Poyser in question doesn't appear to have contributed, and it's unclear why her voice talent was sought after in the first place.

“We have been working closely with their families on how best to represent the contributor's voice when their words are read at the end of the film,” the BBC statement continued. With these specific circumstances and the family's needs in mind, we agreed to use AI for a short period of time to create a sound that could not be heard.

The broadcaster said that the use of AI will be prominently featured in the film.

This controversy is not new for the BBC, which admitted on Tuesday that it had used artificial AI to create marketing images for the new Doctor Who series.

“We followed all the BBC's editorial compliance procedures, and the final text was checked and signed off by a member of the marketing team before being sent,” a BBC statement added, adding, “We have no plans to do this again. Promote Doctor Who.”

Despite the BBC's push for Doctor Who's use of AI, the network has not changed its overall stance on the use of generative AI – a failure to act on voice talent agency Voice Squad, which represents Poyser.

The Voice Squad told the Daily Mail: “We were very disappointed by the production company's response, particularly as it was a BBC project. “The BBC has always stood for quality in their reality and drama broadcasts.

“As a vocal agency, we feel that AI is dangerous to the entire industry by eliminating the work of artists who have trained for three years in drama school and spent many years there,” the company added.

The use of artificial intelligence to replace human talent was one of the key points of the months-long WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes that followed the release of a public version of ChatGPT via OpenAI in late 2022, after the technology was refined and rapidly deployed. .

Fast forward to 2024, and AI has been widely tapped to create AI-generated images, music, video and audio. AI tools like Runway, Murf and OpenAI's Sora have revolutionized content creation. It's become easier to use technology to do hours of work that would take a person days or weeks, not scripts, books, songs, images, or videos.

Yesterday, OpenAI published examples of voice cloning enabled by its new voice engine, which only needs 15 seconds of recorded speech to create a convincing copy.

Edited by Ryan Ozawa.