Key Takeaways
ElevenLabs’ Reader App Launch
A week ago, ElevenLabs, the artificial intelligence voice startup founded by former Google and Palantir engineers, made headlines with its first major consumer-centric product – a Reader app.
Currently available on iOS, the product is a dedicated voiceover solution that converts any text file or link from the web into AI audio, narrated in different AI voices and accents.
Will make sure to never buy anything from @elevenlabsio
— Jason Farris (@jasondfarris) July 2, 2024
Today, the company announced it is expanding this library of voices on the app to include AI voices of late Hollywood celebs Judy Garland, James Dean, Burt Reynolds, and Sir Laurence Olivier.
Partnerships and Expansion Plans
The company has partnered with CMG Worldwide, the firm managing and protecting the intellectual property rights of living and deceased celebrities, to recreate and launch the iconic voices.
Disgusting. The people behind this should feel ashamed. Absolutely sickening
— Chris DeRose (is very tired) (@ScratchyDerose) July 2, 2024
Additionally, it plans to build on this work with many more celebrated AI voices set to launch in the coming months. The Reader app gives a more tailored form to ElevenLabs’ research in the text-to-speech space.
All a user has to do is give the link or file for any digital text – be it an article, PDF, newsletter, or 300-page e-book – and the app instantly processes the text and begins the voiceover AI narration, with a green highlighter following along and highlighting each word spoken by the AI.
There are loads of talented living people who do this work. I’m never listening to any of this material with an AI voice.
— Aunt Fetamine🐀🐀 (@AntFetamine) July 3, 2024
Customization and User Experience
The feature is available in English, although users can customize their experience by choosing from 11 voices and accents, from male to female, American to Austrian to British English.
Now, the Iconic voices launched today add to this experience, allowing users to discover and experience content in the voice of the late stars.
@elevenlabsio To be frank. This is my first impression of what your company does. I do not find the idea charming, novel or anything I would want to buy. It is a disgusting practice of giving creative jobs away to machine and bringing down the peoples’ voices you are mimicking.
— Imagination Station (@Pryorcal1) July 3, 2024
For the family members of the late stars, the AI-based voice recreation is an opportunity to make sure that the celebs’ legacies live on, with their existing fans getting a way to reconnect with them and new-age users getting a way to discover them.
Meanwhile, for ElevenLabs, the announcement is expected to drive more engagement on the new app.
But why… Who cares? Who wants to read books read by a computer who imitates dead people who never gave their consent?
I want to hear the passion of actual actors who chose to be there— Mordred 🥦💥🍰 – 🔞 (@arthurianmaiden) July 3, 2024
Ethical Considerations and Safety Measures
“Judy Garland, James Dean, Burt Reynolds, and Sir Laurence Olivier are some of the most celebrated actors in history. We deeply respect their legacy and are honored to have their voices as part of our platform,” said Dustin Blank, head of partnerships at ElevenLabs. “Adding them to our growing list of narrators marks a major step forward in our mission of making content accessible in any language and voice.”
One of the biggest concerns associated with voice cloning technology – like the one at play here – is that voice recreations of known personalities can portray them as saying things they never actually said in the real world. Biden’s Robocall incident is the biggest example of such an issue.
ElevenLabs says it understands these concerns and is moving to expand partnerships for the iconic voices feature with a particular focus on safety.
All that AI is doing is smearing a thick coat of banality and knock-off quality to everything.
— ⚓ El Cavilldo ⚓ (@ECavilldo) July 2, 2024
Sam Sklar, who handles growth marketing at ElevenLabs, told VentureBeat that the company retains full control over celebrity voices and makes them available only on the Reader app, which has been designed in such a way that users can only convert digital text into AI narration for individual consumption — rather than further sharing or downloading.
“For example, through the Reader App, you could choose an article on VentureBeat and select Judy Garland to narrate it just for you. You cannot access her voice through the ElevenLabs voice library (a separate web product of the company). This means they can’t be used in conjunction with our typical text-to-speech tools on the platform, nor can the content they speak through the Reader App be downloaded or shared,” he explained.
Safeguards and Moderation
If a user uploads harmful content as text to record its iconic voice narration through a secondary device, the company will not even generate the AI voiceover.
What if we put the entire ElevenLabs team in a tiny cage until they come to terms with how absolutely disgusting this is
— Cyn (@Cynthegm) July 2, 2024
It has implemented automated and human moderation processes to identify and block hate speech and other forms of text that violate its terms of service.
“As for the chances of the voice library being misused to clone celeb voices from scratch, Sklar says the platform has been built with several safeguards, including a voice captcha verification that matches the audio samples uploaded for cloning with the user’s voice recording.
If the voice doesn’t match after a few attempts, the cloning request is not processed. There’s also a “no go” voices policy in place, which prohibits the cloning of voices deemed high risk. “Any attempt to clone these voices will be blocked,” Sklar said.
Future Prospects and Global Rollout
While these steps do reduce the chances of celebs, actors, and business executives’ voices being cloned, there still can be cases of violations.
For instance, malicious users could craft the content for the Reader app in such a way that it bypasses the moderation measures placed by the company.
That’s creepy
— Under Foundation (@Minn21a) July 2, 2024
In the long run, it will be interesting to see how the iconic voices capability, which has been positioned as an offering for fans and enthusiasts, impacts the industry.
The Reader app hosting it will be rolling out both globally and to Android devices this summer. Support for more languages is also on the way.
“Through the spectacular new technology offered by ElevenLabs, our family believes that this will bring new fans to Mama, and be exciting to those who already cherish the unparalleled legacy that Mama gave and continues to give to the world,” Liza Minnelli, daughter of Judy Garland and representative of the Garland Estate, said in a statement.
The Reader app is available for iOS in the US, the UK, and Canada, and it’s free to use for the first three months. It is only available in English but will launch globally when it becomes available in an anticipated 29 languages.
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