AI AND U

The real Paul might not have been Dusty's best
hairdresser, either.

 When last we explored the wild frontier of AI over a year ago, a faux-Paul McCartney was singing Dusty Springfield songs badly, while living celebrities were decrying the unauthorized use of their voices. Since then, it's become impossible to tell replicants from the real thing, leaving stars of music and screen to give up the fight and raise the green flag of monetary surrender.

Well, not the celebrities themselves but their estates, i.e. heirs of the dead with dollar signs in their eyes. When they say We're thrilled to be doing this for the fans, what they mean is We're thrilled that we can continue to cash in on those who came before us. And why not? Somebody's going to do it, so it might as well be family, blood being thicker than terabytes.

The latest software company to ride the A.I. wave, ElevenLabs, has teamed with (i.e., paid plenty) the estates of Judy Garland, James Dean, Laurence Olivier and Burt Reynolds for its "Iconic Voices" Readers App. No need to pay living people to read books, essays, or deep thoughts from Cal Thomas out loud when the non-real things are available. 

"I said 'breach', not grease!"

Speaking as the resident cook in my family, Lord Olivier reading me the recipe for Blue Cheese Burgers with shallots in his best "once more unto the breach" delivery would make for a much classier meal. But if I'm in the mood for Crawfish Etoufee, will I able to bring up Olivier's southern-fried Big Daddy from his Cat on a Hot Tin Roof  TV movie to give the instructions? That's the thing with actors -- there's so much acting to choose from! 

"And what kind of a name is Guaranteed Rate
Field for a professional baseball team
anyway?!"

Remember James Dean's "You're tearing me apart!" scene from Rebel Without a Cause? While I don't associate it with sports, nothing would be a better fit for hearing a recitation of the Chicago White Sox's current ignoble stats. Ma, we're at 25 and 64! We've got 0.1% of getting into the Series! This is why we have the second lowest attendance in the league! 

Let Mama tell you a bedtime story.

And then there' Judy Garland, dead eight years longer than she lived. Ask your average American to name one of her movies, and it will likely be the one where she falls asleep in a heroin poppy field with three guys who couldn't tell the time if you spotted them the minute and hour hands. She was 17 at the time; do you want a 17 year-old reading, say, The JFK Assassination Evidence Handbook to you on your morning commute? 

Unlikely! Therefore, ElevenLabs needs to jump ahead a couple of decades to the real Judy, showing the effects of some backstage imbibing on talk shows. That's good for a sick laugh when you want to hear your daily news feed with a jigger of Bombay Sapphire. Then there's the end-of-life Judy, yelling and slurring and swearing into a cheap microphone at home while attempting to even some old scores. If that wouldn't be perfect for reading quotes from any angry politician, then I don't know what. 

Agnes Moorehead with the news.

A bigger question than Which Judy or James or Laurence are we gonna use? -- at least to me -- is Who exactly is the audience for this kind of thing? Are there enough James Dean fans willing to shell out money on this? Is his voice that distinctive? And if you want some Method actor reciting the stock market quotes, wouldn't you rather Marlon Brando than some upstart poseur? 

I'm also not sure what would come first: getting bored by the novelty, or creeped out by almost-real replicants reading to you every night? To me it sounds pure Twilight Zone. Which is why I'm getting in touch with the Rod Serling estate to glom his voice onto an app. Happy listening!                                                            

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