Cher and Selena Gomez slam unauthorized AI use of their voices
As artificial intelligence continues to gain popularity with individuals and companies, more stars are speaking out about its use.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Cher expressed her fears about the technology after she heard someone use her voice to cover a song by Madonna.
“Someone did me doing a Madonna song, and it was kind of shocking,” she said.
“They didn’t have it down perfectly. But also, I’ve spent my entire life trying to be myself, and now these a–holes are going to go take it? And they’ll do my acting, and they’ll do my singing? It’s just, it’s out of control.”
She continued, “I’m telling you, if you work forever to become somebody — and I’m not talking about somebody in the famous, money part — but an artist, and then someone just takes it from you, it seems like it should be illegal.”
Marva Bailer, an AI expert, told Fox News Digital that stars do have legal recourse when it comes to unauthorized use of their likeness or voice.
“The laws that exist in place are already – you need permission to use someone’s likeness, and a likeness could be their song, their voice, their image or performance. Those laws exist,” she said.
“But what we’re seeing now is with the use of AI, the amount of access of tools to the general public to create these real images or performances is now really available. And before it wasn’t, you had to have knowledge and use of these more complicated editing tools. Now we can take our phone, and we can wipe somebody out of a picture with one swipe. So what’s happening now is it’s just really the access. So the laws do exist, but you need to find what is being done wrong to that image and likeness.”
Bailer added the onus is on the performer to prove they were not involved in the creation of the project in the first place, but it can be hard to find and identify the situation.
Some may find Cher’s concerns about the technology ironic, as her Grammy-winning song “Believe,” released in 1998, is credited with the first use of autotune.
Cher, in her interview with the AP, pointed out that it was called a “pitch machine” at the time, and she had argued with producer Mark Taylor about using the technology.
“It started and it was like, ‘Oh my God, this is the best thing ever.’ And I thought, ‘You don’t even know it’s me. This is the best thing ever.’ And then we high-fived,” she recalled.
