David Greene, the longtime host of NPR’s “Morning Edition,” is suing Google. He alleges that the male podcast voice in the company’s NotebookLM tool is based on his own voice, according to The Washington Post.
Greene said that after friends, family members, and coworkers began emailing him about the resemblance, he became convinced that the voice was replicating his cadence, intonation, and use of filler words like “uh.” He stated that his voice is the most important part of who he is. Greene currently hosts the KCRW show “Left, Right, & Center.”
Google’s NotebookLM allows users to generate a podcast with AI hosts, among other features. A company spokesperson told the Post that the voice used in this product is unrelated to Greene’s. They said the sound of the male voice in NotebookLM’s Audio Overviews is based on a paid professional actor Google hired.
This is not the first dispute over AI voices resembling real people. In one notable example, OpenAI removed a ChatGPT voice after actress Scarlett Johansson complained that it was an imitation of her own.