In the Department of Industry Science and Resources “Safe and responsible AI in Australia -
Discussion paper” much is said of “high risk” applications of Ai. "High Risk" mainly alludes to medical applications and future concerns such as self driving vehicles. Of course advancements in AI could have great benefits in the areas of medicine and productivity, however the positive potential of AI technology also comes with a reverse side that must be considered.

When it comes to applications of Ai technology in communications, media, and creative sectors
the damage of Ai is already being felt putting these categories into a level of imminent risk,
actual real world damage to industry, labour displacement, media trust and intellectual property theft.

With an epidemic of violence towards women Ai voice clones can become one more tool for those who impose coersive control over others. The damage Ai voice clones can do to a person's reputation and identity can be irreversible, which is why this technology needs appropriate regulation.

According to Ai Developer ELEVEN LABS who are a leader in the creation of Ai Voices "AI voice cloning is a technology that creates synthetic copies of human voices. It analyzes audio recordings to mimic the tone, pitch, and characteristics of a person's voice."

The technology is getting better every day, in some instances indistinguishable from the real thing, but Ai needs your voice to do that. Remember it's YOUR VOICE, YOUR CHOICE. 

AAVA acknowledges that this technology is here and there are people and organisations who will choose to work with it on occaision. Our aim is that this will be done ethically with the rights and considerations of humans put first. AAVA urges AI developers to adhere to practices that respect the artist at all times.

In the US 2024 "The State of Voice Over Survey" 6% of Voice Actors claim that a synthetic version of your their voice or a character they voiced had been created without their permission, and that is only the performers who have been made aware of it. This statistic is only set to rise as the take-up of this technology increases. If you see any of the following lanuage in a contract, chances are the client is looking to use your voice to create an Ai Voice:

“simulation”
“synthesization”
“digital double”
“machine learning”
"clone"

If a contract mentions any of these things there is a good chance that cloning of your voice is being considered. You should also be mindful of any contract that uses phrases such as "in perpetuity". This means indefinitely, or put simply, forever. 

AI technology has the potential to make our lives better, but there are risks to using this technology without guardrails and regulation. At AAVA we understand that there are some jobs that a person simply can not do, in those circumstances the use of AI technology should always be employed ethically.