In a demo of the enhanced AI tools on Wednesday, Meta’s artificial intelligence-powered chatbot spoke to CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a voice familiar to fans of American actress, comedian and rapper Awkwafina.
That’s because its virtual assistant, Meta AI, can now read out responses to users’ questions in the voices of a number of famous people, the company announced at its Connect conference. Meta said the chatbot has around 400 million users, who can choose the voice they want to hear.
Currently, these voice actors include Awkwafina, Kristen Bell, John Cena, Judi Dench and Keegan-Michael Key, according to the company, with more generic voice options coming soon.
“We think voice is going to be a more natural way to interact with AI than text. Much better,” Zuckerberg said when announcing the feature, adding that Meta is adding celebrity voices to “make it fun.”
During a demo of the tool at the conference, Zuckerberg asked the AI, “Are live demos dangerous?” The AI, voiced by Awkwafina, responded, “Live demos are certainly dangerous. They’re unpredictable, prone to technical issues, and potentially embarrassing…”
The use of AI chatbots that sound like celebrities came into the spotlight earlier this year when ChatGPT’s developer, OpenAI, got into trouble. Scarlett Johansson’s voice The voice she said sounded eerily similar to her own. In May, she made a statement, according to a New York Times report, saying that she had been approached by OpenAI founder Sam Altman to be the voice for ChatGPT’s speech synthesis product, but had turned it down.
Nine months later, Chat GPT When Altman announced the voice product, Johansson reportedly said she was “shocked, angered and in disbelief that Mr. Altman was pursuing a voice that was so eerily similar to mine that close friends and the press could not tell the difference.”
The actors Mehta partnered with could have been paid millions of dollars in exchange for the use of their voices, according to a New York Times report on the negotiations. Mehta did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the terms of the deal.