Former NPR host David Greene is suing Google after accusing the tech giant of stealing his voice for use in one of its AI-powered tools.
Greene, who presented NPR’s Morning Edition for eight years until 2020 and now hosts the political podcast Left, Right & Center, told the Washington Post he was “completely freaked out” when he heard the voice used by Google’s NotebookLM, a tool that summarizes documents and generates spoken audio overviews — using a voice that sounds very much like his.
When friends and family started getting in touch to ask him if the voice was his, he decided to sue Google, accusing it of violating his rights by copying his voice for NotebookLM, without asking for his permission or offering any kind of compensation.
Google has denied any wrongdoing. “These allegations are baseless,” a spokesperson for the company said, adding that the male voice in NotebookLM’s audio overviews “is based on a paid professional actor Google hired.” It has yet to reveal who that actor is.
Take a listen to the voice generated by NotebookLM in the video below (it runs for about eight seconds) and then listen to David Greene’s voice in the video below that, and see what you think.
Greene’s case is the latest to highlight how AI is steadily upending the creative industries, and at the same time upsetting many of those working within them.
It also brings to mind a similar case in May 2024 when the actor Scarlett Johansson accused OpenAI of replicating her voice for use as one of ChatGPT’s voices for the chatbot’s voice mode.
Johansson said she had twice declined requests from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to use her voice, and was shocked when the newly released Sky voice sounded “eerily” or “strikingly” similar to hers and that of her AI character in the 2013 movie Her, about a lonely man who falls in love with an advanced AI operating system called Samantha.
Lawyers representing the actor demanded explanations about how the voice was created. OpenAI responded by removing the voice, claiming that it came from a different professional actress, not Johansson, and insisting that it was never intended to mimic her.
As for Greene, he also has concerns about how Google’s NotebookLM tool — using a voice that sounds very much like his — can be used to spread the kind of conspiracy theories that he would never personally give any credence to, with some listeners possibly believing that he’s doing just that.
Unless some kind of settlement is reached beforehand, it’ll be up to a California court to decide if Google has infringed on Greene’s rights to his voice or likeness.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Google DeepMind's AI world model Genie 4 can now build interactive worlds that you can explore and reshape as they run. It also generates ambient sounds, music, and dialogue that respond to your actions.
The new world model builds on Genie 3 with improved realism, more natural human movement, and better simulations of real-world physics. It could eventually help with everything from game development to training robots.
Apple has an incredible talent for making me admire its products while simultaneously questioning what on earth it's thinking with the pricing. This isn't even something as bizarre as a monitor stand, but the audacity for starting a new laptop lineup from $2,000 doesn't surprise me.
The newly announced 14-inch MacBook Pro with M6 is just the latest to showcase this. The funny thing is, I already know that it's going to be a reliable workstation. You get a powerful new 2nm M6 processor, a gorgeous Liquid Retina XDR display, and up to 24 hours of battery life. We were impressed by the M5 MacBook Air, so the high-end M6 powered MacBook Pro definitely won't let us down.