New UK campaign wants you to legally own your own voice

A campaign backed by Nicola Coughlan, Hugh Bonneville and Matt Lucas is asking the Government to give every person in Britain legal ownership of their own voice.

Save Our Voices Now launched with an open letter to Prime Minister Andy Burnham and a petition on the UK Parliament petitions site, as reported by the Guardian.

The campaign is targeting AI voice cloning, in which a system replicates a real person’s voice and makes it say anything the user prompts. Luke Evans, Jen Brister, Siobhán McSweeney and Pearl Mackie have also put their names to it.

About 80 people have signed the open letter, which asks the government to give everyone in Britain ownership of their voice as part of their statutory rights.

The campaign is making three specific demands of the government:

• A statutory right for every person to legally own their voice as personal intellectual property
• The legal burden of proving consent placed on the AI developer rather than the individual
• The right made enforceable in UK courts against any platform serving UK users, wherever that platform is based

“My voice is unique, it’s mine, it’s part of my identity. So is yours. That’s worth speaking up about,” said Hugh Bonneville, the star of Paddington and Downton Abbey. He added that the quote was handwritten rather than created by AI.

Save Our Voices Now says 28% of UK adults report they have been targeted by a voice-cloning scam.

“In just three seconds, with the right AI system, your voice can be cloned, stolen and reinterpreted without your knowledge. It’s a Black Mirror episode, except this isn’t fiction. It’s happening right now,” said Peter Caulfield, founder of Save Our Voices Now.

“The bottom line is the government is allowing AI companies to steal and profit from artists’ voices without their consent. They are also allowing criminals to use AI to clone people’s identities and threaten everyone. We need to use our real voices now to stop it,” he added.

“I’m deeply worried that legislation, contracts, working practices and ethics, and artists’ rights are not being considered or protected as quickly as AI technology is progressing,” said Siobhán McSweeney, the Derry Girls actor.

“I believe that there is a way to work alongside AI and to use it as a tool that benefits us rather than rendering us obsolete. This is an existential problem and needs to be controlled legislatively as soon as possible. My voice is one of my tools,” she added.

McSweeney said audiences want human connection rather than AI, and that she sees no reason to remove the human from the equation in order to adapt to technological advances.

Denmark is further ahead on the issue, with law reforms giving citizens legal ownership over their own face, body and voice. Those reforms let people demand the removal of unauthorised AI content and seek compensation.

Readers who want to support the campaign can add their name to the petition on the UK Parliament petitions site.

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