Meta is currently offering celebrities millions of dollars to clone their voices for use in AI technology, as reported by Bloomberg and The New York Times. Celebrities like Judi Dench, Awkwafina, and Keegan-Michael Key have been approached to have their voices utilized in AI chatbots or other AI products.
There is a sense of urgency within Meta to secure these celebrity voices before their upcoming Connect 2024 event in September. Last year, Meta showcased AI chatbots with famous faces like Kendall Jenner, Tom Brady, and Paris Hilton, but the project was halted after the chatbots failed to gain traction on social media.
Celebrity voice cloning gained attention this year when Meta’s competitor, OpenAI, demonstrated GPT-4o, an AI chatbot that sounded remarkably similar to Scarlett Johansson. Johansson took legal action, leading OpenAI to remove the voice.
Meta’s AI strategy focuses on creating a diverse community of AI chatbots with specific functions, rather than a singular chatbot like OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Zuckerberg emphasized this approach at the 2024 SIGGRAPH conference, stating the importance of having a variety of AI applications.