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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Alexi Duggins

‘It could have me read porn’: Stephen Fry shocked by AI cloning of his voice in documentary

Stephen Fry
Stephen Fry says his agents ‘went ballistic’ after discovering that an AI-generated version of his voice was being used to narrate a history documentary. Photograph: David M Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images

Stephen Fry has issued a warning about the potential dangers of AI, after claiming that a history documentary faked his voice without his knowledge. Speaking at the tech-based CogX festival in London, the star played a clip of a programme seemingly narrated by him, before saying that it was the result of digital cloning.

“I said not one word of that – it was a machine,” Fry told attenders. “Yes, it shocked me. They used my reading of the seven volumes of the Harry Potter books, and from that dataset an AI of my voice was created and it made that new narration.”

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