Alright, alright, alright, Matthew McConaughey and Michael Caine are officially lending their voices to artificial intelligence amid actors’ rampant concern about the tech’s inevitable impact on their livelihoods.
The Oscar winners’ signature pipes will get the virtual makeover from ElevenLabs, in which the “Interstellar” star, 56, is also investing an unknown sum, Variety reports.
“To everyone building with voice technology: keep going. You’re helping create a future where we can look up from our screens and connect through something as timeless as humanity itself — our voices,” McConaughey, who’s worked with the company since 2022, insisted in a statement.
ElevenLabs will be creating a Spanish-language audio version of the “Greenlights” author’s “Lyrics of Livin’” newsletter, which he says will therefore “reach and connect with even more people.”
Caine’s Cockney vocals will be part of the outfit’s Iconic Voice Marketplace, which seeks access to talent for projects and requires both parties to sign on. The 92-year-old actor echoed similar sentiments in a statement from ElevenLabs.
The company, he says, will “preserve and share voices — not just mine, but anyone’s. … It’s not about replacing voices; it’s about amplifying them, opening doors for new storytellers everywhere.”
ElevenLabs says the marketplace enables “the ethical sourcing and licensing of some of the world’s most recognizable voices,” among them, Art Garfunkel, Liza Minnelli and her late mother Judy Garland, as well as other deceased figures like Thomas Edison, John Wayne, Jean Harlow, Maya Angelou, Babe Ruth, Rock Hudson, Alan Turing, Montgomery Clift, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and Laurence Olivier.
Just last month, Loti AI — which detects deepfakes — told Variety it will shield the likenesses of Garland, as well as Rosa Parks, Jimmy Stewart, and Albert Einstein from A.I. manipulation.
