Summary
- Morgan Freeman opposes AI voice replication after discovering his voice on TikTok.
- Scarlett Johansson also faced AI misuse, leading to growing calls for AI regulation.
- Celebrities like Freeman and Johansson highlight the need for legislation to protect their authenticity and integrity.
AI has been a controversial issue in Hollywood ever since the WGA/SAG-AFTRA strikes shone a spotlight on it in 2023, and now acclaimed actor Morgan Freeman has joined the ranks of those rallying against the use of the technology after he discovered AI was being used to replicate his voice on TikTok. Freeman is, of course, the Academy Award-winning actor who has starred in the likes of The Shawshank Redemption, Driving Miss Daisy, and Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy as Lucious Fox. He can currently be seen starring in Special Ops: Lioness, which airs on Paramount+ and was recently renewed for a second season.
Taking to his X (formerly Twitter) account, Freeman thanked those who helped bring attention to the fact that AI was being used to replicate the 87-year-old actor’s voice on TikTok in a video by user @justinescameraroll pretending to be his niece. He said it’s the dedicated fans who help “authenticity and integrity remain paramount,” in a day and age when it’s very easy to trick someone into believing one thing, when the opposite is true. Check out his post below.
It was user @justinescameraroll who posted a video of her everyday life on TikTok during a trip to Spain, with Freeman’s AI voiceover stating at the beginning, “Welcome to my niece’s day in the life, narrated by me, Morgan Freeman.” At the time she posted the video, it got around 30,000 hits, but then went viral after it was shared to X, where it garnered an additional 16 million views. @justinescameraroll has no connection to Freeman whatsoever, but the video left many believing that he was, in fact, her uncle.
She has since apologized in a follow-up video, claiming she “thought it was very obvious that this was a joke.” She would add, “If anyone from his [Morgan Freeman] team is watching, I am so sorry…please don’t cease and desist.” Check out her apology video below.
Morgan Freeman Joins a Growing List of Celebrities Taking Action Against AI
While Freeman’s voice may have been used by AI to trick fans into thinking someone was his niece, he isn’t the first celebrity to fall victim to the fast-growing technology. Last year, Scarlett Johansson filed charges against the creators of an AI app which used her image and voice to promote its services, and she made headlines again in May of this year thanks to the popular ChatGPT, an AI virtual assistant and chatbot.
Johansson was contacted by Open AI CEO Sam Altman in 2023 about using her voice to promote the release of ChatGPT 4.0., but declined for “personal reasons.” To her surprise, the demo released in 2024 featuring the AI entity known as ‘Sky’ sounded eerily similar to Johansson, leaving her “angered in disbelief.”
“When I heard the released demo, I was shocked, angered and in disbelief that Mr. Altman would pursue a voice that sounded so eerily similar to mine that my closest friends and news outlets could not tell the difference. Mr. Altman even insinuated that the similarity was intentional, tweeting a single word ‘her’ — a reference to the film in which I voiced a chat system, Samantha, who forms an intimate relationship with a human.”
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Open AI and Sam Altman quickly issued a statement, saying they never intended ‘Sky’ to sound like Johansson, and that the voice actor used was cast long before they contacted the 39-year-old Marvel star. They have since suspended the use of ‘Sky’ in promoting their products, and offered an apology to Johansson.
As the controversial use of AI continues to make waves in Hollywood, the list of celebrities calling for legislation to regulate the use of the technology keeps growing. Until something concrete is in place, AI seems to be the wild west right now, with people free to use it any way they’d like until they get caught, but by then the damage has already been done.
