Meta Is Offering Millions to Hollywood Stars for Their Voices in AI Projects

TapTechNews August 3rd news, according to a report by Bloomberg early this morning, several sources familiar with the negotiation situation said that Meta is offering millions of dollars to Hollywood stars to obtain their recordings and the right to use their voices in AI projects.

These people indicated that the company is negotiating with Judi Dench, Awkwafina, and Keegan-Michael Key. Due to the confidentiality of the project, these sources did not want to disclose their names, and representatives of Meta refused to comment.

Meta is hurrying to complete the deal in order to gain time for the development of AI tools - which is planned to be unveiled at the Connect 2024 conference in September. Although it is not entirely clear how Meta will use these voices, according to these people, a chatbot has been discussed internally at Meta that can act as a digital assistant (TapTechNews note: similar to Apple's Siri), or can act as a friend of the user. For example, users can have a conversation with a chatbot with the timbre of Hollywood stars.

Due to the inability of all parties to reach an agreement on the terms of using the actors' voices, the negotiations between Meta and some actor representatives have stalled many times and then restarted. Meta hopes to obtain the right to use the voices multiple times within a fixed period of a single project, while the actor representatives are seeking stricter limitations.

At present, the use of AI has already frightened many people in the Hollywood creative community, who are worried about losing their jobs due to this technology. According to relevant people, the main actors' union, SAG-AFTRA, has reached an agreement with Meta on the terms.

It is reported that Meta has tried to create a text-based chatbot inspired by celebrities such as Dwyane Wade and Paris Hilton, but this project has been scrapped. Meta has also launched an AI studio where content creators can make their own chatbots.