Research project on AI-created voices receives millions in funding

In recent years, generative AI has taken the world by storm - for better or worse. Advances in text-to-speech (TTS) now make it possible to create lifelike synthetic voices that mimic dialects/sociolects, breath sounds, intonations and emotions, including voice clones of specific human voices. Synthetic voices are increasingly used in games, movies, music, audio books, smart speakers, and chatbots. From a technical perspective, this means that you can have your email, newspaper or novel read to you by a voice that sounds like Astrid Lindgren's, rapper Snoop Dogg's or your late grandmother's, for example. But what is legally correct? How should AI voices be regulated? What should society strive for?

The lack of clarity around the legal protection of AI-generated voices is problematic. The question of whose voices we hear and who benefits from it has major societal repercussions - democratic, cultural, symbolic. Development should not be driven solely by market forces or isolated legal analysis. The VOICE Research Environment (2025-2030) aims to (a) create interdisciplinary perspectives on the use of synthetic voices in culture and the creative sector; which (b) supports legal research relevant to democracy, constitutional rights of citizens, creative innovation and artistic freedom; resulting in (c) research in law, sociology of literature, human-computer interaction and ethnomusicology and (d) practical tools to strengthen the rights of artists and citizens with regard to their voices.

The VOICE interdisciplinary research environment focuses on five overarching themes related to voice and AI:

1) authenticity vs. syntheticity;
2) dead vs. live voices;
3) physicality vs. disembodiment;
4) consumer choice and voice bubbles;
5) power and legal issues in practice.

In addition to the core of four top researchers and one PhD student, the VOICE research community consists of another 25-35 researchers and other “critical friends” who are invited to and participate in workshops.