Use of AI to copy Anthony Bourdain’s voice in documentary draws criticism

A review of The New Yorker of Roadrunner, the new documentary about Anthony Bourdain, gets more attention for an anecdote mentioned towards the end. In the article published Thursday, journalist Helen Rosner describes a scene from the film in which artist David Choe, a friend of Bourdain’s, reads an email from the late chef and travel documentary maker, who death by suicide in 2018.

The scene begins with Choe’s voice before moving on to Bourdain’s, who says, “and my life is kind of shit now. You’re successful, and I’m successful, and I’m wondering: are you happy ?” Rosner says she asked filmmaker Morgan Neville how he found a recording of Bourdain reading the email. Neville reportedly told him, “There were three quotes out there that I wanted his voice for that weren’t recorded.” So Neville gave a software company about 12 hours of recordings and “created an AI model of his voice.”

This revelation makes some people uncomfortable about the ethics behind the decision. Washington Post reporter Dave Weigel tweeted a screenshot of the passage, writing, “thank you, I hate this.”

“It can be awkward when the docs ask an actor to ‘interpret’ someone’s quotes – Hunter S. Thompson’s doc asked Johnny Depp to read his columns, for example. But that? Sucks!” he added.

“I think that’s pretty grotesque”, someone else tweeted.

Focus Features, who created the film, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Emerging technologies have made it easier for us to distort reality through synthetic media like deepfakes, which are videos that appear to show people doing or saying things they’ve never done. The use of this technology ranges from creation celebrity lookalikes videos on TikTok potentially disrupting elections or violating people’s privacy. Some people have expressed concern about the implications of this type of rapidly evolving technology, and the Bourdain revelation has some wondering if the late boss would agree with this use of AI.

In the New Yorker article, Neville told Rosner, “If you watch the movie, other than that line you mentioned, you probably don’t know what other lines were spoken by the AI, and you won’t know. ”He added,“ We ​​can have a documentary ethics panel on this later. ”

Writer Isaac Butler tweeted, “Sounds unethical to me maybe?”

Documentary filmmaker Lindsay Beyerstein, who is not affiliated with Roadrunner, wrote, “Did they reveal to viewers that while most of the lines in Bourdain’s voice came from actual footage, some were simulated by AI with the words taken from the texts he wrote? There’s no real problem using AI instead of a sounding actor in a non-fiction movie, as long as the creators are upfront about what they’re doing. “

In an article published Tuesday by GQ, Neville told the publication, “I checked, you know, with his widow and executor, just to make sure people were cool with that. And they were like, Tony would have been cool with that. I wasn’t putting words in his mouth. I was just trying to bring them to life. ”

On Friday, Ottavia Bourdain, the chef’s widow, rejected the comment, say in a tweet: “I was definitely NOT the one who said Tony would have been cool with this.”

Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain hits theaters on Friday.