AI Kills Off Voice Actors
March 10, 2026
Too bad for wanna be Mel Blanc, the Bugs Bunny guy.
Scarlet Johansson was approached by OpenAI to be the voice ChatGPT.? ? She declined, but not long after OpenAI released “Sky” a chatbot that strangely resembled Johansson.? ? Johansson sued and OpenAi discontinued using Sky.? ? That was only the beginning of celebrities, voice actors, news anchors, and other public people having their voices stolen by AI.? ? Gizmodo reported that, “Former NPR Host Accuses Google Of Copying His Voice For AI Offering.”
David Greene is a podcaster and he is accusing Google of copying his voice for the NotebookLM tool.? ? Here’s what Google did with NotebookLM and what Greene believes:
“Google added Audio Overviews in the second half of 2024, allowing NotebookLM users to make brief podcast episodes out of pages of notes and documents of any kind. The AI-generated podcasts typically have one male and one female cohost. Greene is now claiming that the male co-host was clearly trained on hours of his hard work, which it allegedly now mimics, and he is suing the company for failing to get his permission or offering him any compensation.”
When NotebookLM was released, it was praised for sounding “eerily human” and it stood out from other AI tools.? ? NotebookLM is a breakout success for Google.
Greene hosted NPR’s Morning Edition for a decade.? ? He had the male voice tested at an AI forensic firm that said the voice was 53-60% him.? ? Google says the allegations are baseless and is based on a male voice actor Google hired.
Guess who will run out of cash before the other party? A former NPR host or the Google? It’s GoFundMe and Patreon time we think. On the other hand, just become an AI orchestrator.
Whitney Grace, March 10, 2026
Comments
Got something to say?
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
