There’s been a lot of pro-and-con buzz swirling around about the new Christopher Nolan-directed version of The Odyssey. But what if you don’t want your Greek heroes and heroines talking with American accents and spouting modern jargon? What if you’re more attuned to Homer’s epic and its heroes played with a more classic cadence and prose? What if you want a rendition narrated by, say, the recognizable intonations of Sir Michael Caine?
Well, it just so happens that you can get that version at a moment’s notice. A Caine-narrated audiobook of The Odyssey launched recently, just before Nolan’s film adaptation hit theaters. And good old Sir Michael barely had to get out of bed to accomplish that 500 page-long narrative feat.
Michael Caine, you see, signed over the rights to his iconic voice and its unique sound and rhythm to a company called ElevenLabs. He gave them a handful of vocal samples. And ElevenLabs’ AI-driven, text-to-speech platform, ElevenReader, took it from there. The actor can now earn payments on anything from renditions of classic literature to, well, voiceover ads for ear wax remover without lifting a vocal cord.
Caine isn’t alone in dunking his proverbial toe in the artificial intelligence pool, either. The London-based ElevenLabs, which launched in 2023, has been swelling its voiceover contracts and voice offerings into the thousands. (Matthew McConaughey is another famous signee.) And that growing number even includes agreements with the estates of well-known deceased actors, such as Judy Garland, John Wayne, Lawrence Olivier and James Dean.
So, it could have just as easily been an AI Burt Reynolds reading Homer’s classic line: “Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns …” (Though I’d probably still have ponied up quicker for AI Michael Caine.)
Of course, these relatively new AI agreements and endeavors are happening amidst swirling tensions about AI-cloned voices of any sort. We’ve witnessed everything from online frauds and scams to political misinformation. The fact is that the technology is getting so good that it’s becoming harder and harder to tell the difference between the original and the AI clone. And that means that actor unions are rather nervous about it all and wanting to protect their “flocks.” (Not to mention, their piece of the pie.)
However, actors are sitting up and reconsidering the possibilities. I recall seeing a video by one voiceover actor who opined that something like ElevenLabs could cut down his work time on a larger project from weeks and months to days and hours. For equivalent pay. That’s a sizable bonus to the average artist trying to make a living.
So, if everything can be kept above board and monitored well, this wild new AI frontier might just benefit everyone … maybe.
In the meantime, you can always turn to Plugged In. We’re all straight shootin’ and scootin’ without a single AI creator or AI speaker in the batch. Yep, we’re 100% HI (human intelligence). Though I wouldn’t mind having the deep, resonant baritone and southern drawl of Matthew McConaughey. Just sayin’.
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