David Attenborough, the legendary natural history presenter, is rallying against AI — unathorized cloning, specifically.
The broadcaster and naturalist said he was “profoundly disturbed” after receiving notification from the BBC that his voice was being cloned by AI creators.
The situation was sparked when BBC News ran an item using voiceover from Attenborough’s latest BBC series, Asia. In the clip, he says: “If you think you’ve seen the best the natural world has to offer, think again. There is nowhere else on Earth with so many untold stories. Welcome then, to Asia.”
The BBC then played the same clip and asked viewers if they could hear any differences. Clue: they sounded almost identical, but the second was an AI-generated capture of his intonation.
It’s being reported the cloned voice is being used in news reports on YouTube channels such as The Intellectualist on issues such as the Ukraine-Russia war and the Donald Trump.
Attenborough told the BBC: “Having spent a …