AI Cloning Biggest Threat to Celebrities With Most Recognizable Voices

Specialists in AI voice cloning technology Podcastle has conducted a survey to discover which celebrities would be most at risk of AI voice cloning misuse. 

The company surveyed 1,000 people in the U.S. to understand which celebrity voices they think will be the easiest to replicate. 

Almost two-thirds of the country (61%) agreed Arnold Schwarzenegger’s voice is the easiest to replicate, with 86% saying he has a distinctive and instantly recognizable accent.

Nearly two in five (39%) said Donald Trump’s voice is easy to copy due to its familiarity from frequent media appearances.

While almost one in four (23%) thought Kim Kardashian’s voice has a consistent tone and pitch that makes it easy to replicate.

Actor Morgan Freeman was the most popular choice of voice for voice assistant technology (24%) and as the next celebrity podcast host (11%), the top reason (41%) being he is a good storyteller who would keep listeners engaged.

The celebrities chosen for the multiple-choice survey were selected based on their combined search volume across Google and TikTok for “[celebrity name] + impression.”

The issue of celebrity voice cloning without consent hit the headlines recently after American actress Scarlett Johansson said she was shocked and angered that the updated version of ChatGPT, which can respond verbally to spoken prompts, had a voice “eerily similar” to hers. She said she had previously been approached by the company to be the voice of ChatGPT but declined. 

Related:OpenAI Pulls ChatGPT Voice Over Scarlett Johansson Similarity

Voice cloning technology has proved controversial with some being banned. Earlier this year, ChatGPT released a text-to-voice tool that generates natural speech from a 15-second clip but has limited its availability and not made it public. 

Podcastle deploys generative AI-driven features in its podcasting platform, including generating voices from text. In February it raised $13.5M in a series A funding round led by Mosaic Ventures.

The company said it’s clear more needs to be done to protect and educate users on the rapidly developing AI voice cloning industry.

CEO and founder of the company Arto Yeritsyan said the tech firm’s primary goal is to champion the use of AI voice technology to enhance user creativity but in a safe and responsible way. 

“By balancing innovation with responsibility, we aim to create a platform where you can confidently explore the benefits of AI and find the tools to support you on your creative journey,” he said.