I decided to write about this insidious (but ethical?) phenomenon when I realized that the Jimmy Dean breakfast sausages TV ads are now using an AI-faked Jimmy Dean voice. For decades they only had one brief catch-line from the old ads when Jimmy was still alive (he died in 2010); we would hear the real Jimmy say, “Wake up to the goodness of Jimmy Dean sausages!” in various combinations. Now, AI Jimmy won’t shut up. (The new Jimmy doesn’t even sound quite right, in my opinion.)
NBC announced last week that veteran sportscaster Al Michaels will be doing recaps during the 2024 Paris Olympics. Well, not really Al; a fake Michaels generated by artificial intelligence will re-create the familiar sportscaster’s voice to provide customized Olympic recaps for Peacock subscribers. “Your Daily Olympic Recap on Peacock” will give users a customized highlight playlist, narrated by AI Al.
Al, who is well past his pull-date at 79 (though still younger than Joe Biden), apparently was happy to have AI Al take over for him, and especially happy to receive the check.
Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz for July Fourth is…
Is this unethical or just “Ick”?
As loyal readers here know, I’m an absolutist on this topic. If every time Al’s voice is used a disclaimer tells listeners that it’s a fake Al and not the real thing, then I give it an ethics pass. Otherwise, the practice is deceptive and unethical. The Sirius/XM Fifties Channel used to replay old Wolfman Jack shows without telling listeners that the Wolfman was dead. Unethical. Later, the Seventies channel featured Casey Kasem’s “American Top 40 Countdown” show after he had died, never mentioning that fact. Also unethical.
The easiest way to kill this trend before it spreads is for the public to make it clear that it doesn’t want to hear fake versions of old famous sportscasters, but live versions of rising new sportscasters. My verdict is that the AI vocal fakes are both icky and unethical.
But a good argument can talk me out of it, if you have one.
Use your own voice, though.
Ethics Alarms 
I have to say unethical. If they are going to do this, there’s no way they’ll also add a disclaimer that it’s not really Al Michaels (even if he approves). The whole idea is to appeal to those viewers who have enjoyed watching Al Michaels in the past.
This has similar aspects to the Biden thing (and we must all relate everything to the election, right?), in that most adults have come to the realization that people get old and either die or cannot perform as they used to be able to. Biden’s a case in point, and I presume Michaels is as well.
It’s sad, if you really liked that person, but it is a fact of life — no one beats old age. For me, I will be sad when Eric Nadel finally hangs up his mike, but he’s given me thousands of games to enjoy his calls, his analyses, his characterizations, and his encyclopedic knowledge of the game. But it’s coming. He’s already taking time off during the season and we’re getting used to the new play by play guy a little at a time. At least, after 44 years, he finally got to see the Rangers win the World Series, and he had the call. 🙂
I think it’s unethical, but not necessarily because people listening may not realize the narrator is dead.
I would venture that most people who will listen to Wolfman Jack or America’s Top 40 know that Jack and Casey are dead. Sure, it could be announced at the beginning, “This is an AI version of the late Casey Kasem” and it would solve the problem of those slow on the uptick.
The problem is nostalgia.
We want things to remain the same. No comedian is as funny as Bob Hope. No singer is as good as Frank Sinatra. No painter is as good as…I dunno…pick one – I don’t know painters very well. But we want things to remain the same so badly that we don’t allow ourselves to move on. So, when Casey Kasem died, radio stations held onto that nostalgia for as long as they could or still can. For a few years after Kasem’s death, my local radio station aired his show on Sunday mornings as they had for decades…they were just reruns (they did announce that it was an episode from [insert date]. It makes sense…they didn’t want to lose that solid ratings block.
Doesn’t the “Rockin’ New Year’s Eve” special still have Dick Clark’s name on it, despite him being dead for years and anyone who is watching it now doesn’t have a 9 PM bedtime and wouldn’t know Dick from Casey Kasem? Ryan Seacrest is doing the legwork, but ABC wants to keep that nostalgia name on it so people will watch.
Tactics like these rob us of the essential human requirement of moving on when something changes. That moment when Dick Clark kisses his wife at midnight is gone and it’s not coming back. Wolfman Jack was the voice of a particular time and it’s gone, too.
AI voices keep the people alive in our minds, making it harder to accept that their body of work is finished and that there won’t be any more of it. It also robs performers now of the opportunity to make their mark with their own faces and own voices because we’re so intent on preserving the illusion that Dick, Wolfman, Casey and Jimmy are still out there making new material.
Many years ago, when they were using computers to make Fred Astaire dance with vacuum cleaners, George Takei told an audience at a convention that this type of technology concerned him. He said that CGI dancers put his dancer friends out of work, CGI actors put his actor friends out of work and CGI singers put his singer friends out of work.
We can’t become used to and fond of new spokespeople, new narrators and new hosts to become nostalgic about later if we allow fake voices to string us along.
So, in the end, we’re all unethical. We are for not wanting a Sunday morning without Casey, a New Year’s Eve without Dick and an ad without Jimmy so badly that we make AI voices successful enough that they can be used profitably at the expense of living actors who could use the work. And those who produce and/or profit off of this endless life are unethical for feeding that want.
The deeper we prod and use the AI technology, the furthur away we move from humanity.
Unethical? What happens when fake AI voices are used as fake evidence of an alleged wrongdoing and cannot be detected by “experts”?
Those Jimmy Dean commercials are nice in one sense. They bring to mind what a pleasant original Jimmy Dean was. I have no idea what kind of person he was, but his persona was just delightful.