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An AI version of Stephen Fry’s voice is to give a talk at Hay festival this year.
Visitors will be able to step into a soundproof booth to hear the clone of Fry’s voice running a voiceover training session. Guided by his “vocal double”, participants will record their own voice reel, “until the experience takes an unexpected turn”, say organisers.
The installation, called Vocalize, “is a brilliant fusion of art and entertainment, revealing both the wonders and pitfalls of AI”, said Fry. “As this technology shapes our future, it urges us to pause, reflect, and question: where are we heading and who gets to decide?”
In 2023, Fry revealed that his recordings of the seven volumes of the Harry Potter books had been used to create an AI version of his voice for the narration of a historical documentary. “I said not one word of that – it was a machine. Yes, it shocked me”, he said at the time.
The AI tool could “have me read anything from a call to storm parliament to hard porn, all without my knowledge and without my permission.” On hearing about it he told his agents, who “went ballistic”.
He has since spoken about AI multiple times. In January, he compared AI to contaminated water, warning that in the future it could have “raw sewage and chemicals and all kinds of nonsense in it”.
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“All of you with children worry about the fact that, as it were, the air they’re breathing is contaminated and that the lines of communication they have through apps and social media is polluted with raw sewage of people’s hatred, weirdness and grooming and all the other terrors. AI is not immune to that, obviously, because it is entirely composed of everything out there,” he told the The British Educational Training and Technology Show, reported the Standard.
The Vocalize installation will run from 22 May to 1 June. It was created by arts production company Sage & Jester, and is partly supported by Arts Council England among other organisations.
“We wanted audiences to feel what manipulation truly means”, said Vocalize’s creators. “When the viewer becomes the protagonist, the boundary between truth and fabrication starts to dissolve… As artists, we’re drawn to exploring AI not only to unlock its creative potential, but also to confront the risks and ethical dilemmas it presents.”
