Cultural AIppropriation

  

In 1997, there was an outcry when ad people made an a commercial in which Fred Astaire danced with a vacuum. It seems that in the real life filming event he wasn’t actually dancing with a vacuum, but with a cane (!) so people didn’t like the idea that a computer system could fabricate images. Now, in the era of deep fakes and the like, the problem has, as you might expect, disappeared. Aging and de-aging actors so that they can play other stages of life, and using CGI to insert actors who died have become acceptable ways of generating relevant cultural content. I also keep seeing ads on my various feeds for a service that can create voice-over avatars, inventing the semblance of a pretty face who can lip-sync my words.

And then I saw this https://typecast.ai/learn/ai-voice-cloner/#:~:text=AI%20can%20clone%20and%20modify,custom%20voice%20perfect%20for%20projects.

This system can, apparently, take my voice, clone it and have it say things I never said. The ethical questions are staggering:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/lanceeliot/2022/07/02/ai-ethics-starkly-questioning-human-voice-cloning-such-as-those-of-your-deceased-relatives-intended-for-use-in-ai-autonomous-systems/?sh=4110e3ad4882

While I know that there is much to argue regarding the morality of manipulating people by impersonating their loved ones, but I am going to stick to an application of a recent issue – that of appropriation.

I am a fan of the Simpsons and I have been since before the first episode (I was a fan of Tracy Ullman). One character in the show is named Apu and he was voiced, for a long time, by Hank Azaria. In 2020, Mr. Azaria decided to stop voicing the character because his imitation of accent was considered offensive. For you Family Guy fans, feel free to retell this story just using Mike Henry’s voicing Cleveland Brown until he didn’t anymore. Now, on one hand, I can rail against this because actors’ impersonating characters from other places is pretty much standard. Heck, on the Simpsons, Bart’s voice is rendered by Nancy Cartwright and Erin Chase has voiced Charlie Brown (and Dan Castallaneta who voices Krusty is not Jewish). Watching the spate of British actors (Hugh Laurie, Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Holland, I’m looking at you, mostly because you are all really good looking) play Americans or Jared Leto play an Israeli, Oscar Isaac don an imperfect English accent, Toby Jones pretend he is Swiss or Sacha Baron Cohen play most any role is part of the suspension of disbelief. But on the other hand, an outcry is an outcry, right?

Now, this isn’t really all that new. Remember that Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll, 2 white men, played the voices of black characters Amos and Andy. But times are apparently different now, as they often are.

So, first, let’s consider where we draw lines. Blackface is out. Jewface is in. Womanface is in, but only sometimes. Appearances are still in flux. Authenticity (that is, the actor’s matching the character’s particular characteristic) is highly variable. A straight man playing a gay character and vice versa? I think that’s still acceptable but I could be wrong. A Hispanic actor playing a non-Hispanic historical personage is OK as long as the entire story is a treatise on race and ignores the actual reality behind the story. ScarJo cannot play a Japanese character as non-Japanese. Anne Boleyn was not black but casting Jodie Turner-Smith is ok. And at this point, I’m not sure if Nick Fury is black or white.

But be all that as it may, and it may, my question today is about the use of AI to play roles or present voices that are inauthentic for about a million reasons. Can a voice-cloning AI use a celebrity voice to play a role? What about an effected accent or a comedic take on a voice? Could a programmer use the past performances of Mr. Azaria to create a new performance of Apu for future episodes? Who would get the credit and who the blame?

If a computer cloned a pidgin or a dialect which is less than/different from the king or queen’s English, who would be committing the offense? The programmer? The person who spoke in the sample that the computer ate in preparation for spitting out new words with the old voice? Beyond the issue of intellectual property laws which would come into play if a company uses a voice without permission, creating the impression that a famous person endorses what he doesn’t (this has already happened with celebrity impersonators) or the voice of a dearly departed celeb (without permission of the estate) there are the questions of that confounded authenticity. The AI isn’t Jewish, Hispanic, Asian, Brooklyn-ish or whatever. Would an AI vocal performance employing the stereotypical affectations which make our pap culture palatable be criticized for relying on the same shorthand that our actors employ? Can computers be attacked for appropriating the culture of others, any others – because a computer has no native culture? What if the programmer is of that culture?

We need to hate someone and the AI isn’t a someone and this might prove a problem when we try to channel our righteous indignation.

 edit -- https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/06/let-the-beatles-be/ interesting comments on AI's taking over a voice