The Last Human Voice Podcast

Get in touch to submit a question or send us your feedback. What does it look like to do business with clones in a way which puts the artist at the centre of the deal?  That's not just our question, but the question posed by Sam Radclyffe. Sam is an experienced entertainment and media rights executive, film producer, and entrepreneur. His answer is Galatea Holdings. Galatea is a Digital Twin...

Get in touch to submit a question or send us your feedback. In this episode we take a look at very recent deals that tech giants have made with media and content platforms to train their AI models, with consent. We are asking: is the tide turning for training AI towards a licensing model, and away from crawling the web in the wild?  In recent months Open AI has made deals with at least 11 companie...

Get in touch to submit a question or send us your feedback. The story of UVA (United Voice Artists) is a lesson in organising, not just for Creative Workers, but for everyone affected by AI - which is to say, Everyone. Co-President, Patrick Messe, explains the urgent need for representation that brought together unions, guilds and other professional bodies, ahead of the EU AI Act. Their cross bord...

Get in touch to submit a question or send us your feedback. Should the creation of Deepfakes be a protected right under the banner of Free Speech? How do existing laws balance our right to Free Speech with our Right to Privacy? Dr Dimitri Kagiaros is Assistant Professor in Law at the University of Durham and an expert on the regulation of Freedom of Expression. He has written extensively on the to...

Get in touch to submit a question or send us your feedback. This time, we get a philosopher's take on AI. Jumbly Grindrod is a lecturer in philosophy at the University of Reading. He specializes in the philosophy of language and epistemology, which refers to the theory of knowledge itself. Does it - or should it - matter to us whether AI or a human being is talking, writing or engaging with u...

Get in touch to submit a question or send us your feedback. In this episode, we select from the latest AI stories that have grabbed the headlines  or slipped by stealth into our feeds.  From the miscommunication that made Mamma Mia actor, Sara Poyzer, trend on Twitter, to the discovery of Marvin Gaye's long lost demos, we look at legislation, regulation and how artists and creative performers...

Get in touch to submit a question or send us your feedback. Much of the fear generated by AI is about theft; the companies that own  the technology will steal your image, replicate your voice and replace you with an AI version of you that takes your job. But perhaps it doesn't have to be that way. Since their collaboration on the documentary "Gerry Anderson: A Life Uncharted", Ben F...

Get in touch to submit a question or send us your feedback. How would it feel to see a digital deepfake of someone you love who has died?  What would you need to consider before  agreeing to create it? Jamie Anderson and Ben Field can answer both of these questions and more.  "Gerry Anderson: A Life Uncharted" is their 2022 documentary about the life and work of Gerry Anderson, TV and fi...

Get in touch to submit a question or send us your feedback. Dr Dominic Lees is an award-winning filmmaker and director. He is also Associate Professor of Filmmaking at the University of Reading, with a research specialism in deepfakes.  In 2019, "Virtual Maggie" was among his projects, exploring how AI technology could be used to resurrect Margaret Thatcher for a contemporary drama calle...

Get in touch to submit a question or send us your feedback. Who is going to own your clone? Who gets to control your digital double after you're dead? And what kind of deal can unions do for the departed? In the second of two episodes dedicated to unpicking  the SAG-AFTRA Deal, we move on from the rules and requirements for the creation and use of "employment-based replicas". These...

Get in touch to submit a question or send us your feedback. On the 14th of July 2023, the American actors’ union ‘SAG-AFTRA’ joined the strike already begun by the WGA (Writers' Guild of America.)  The dispute with the AMPTP (Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers) was about pay, working conditions and AI. An interim deal was struck in November and approved by SAG-AFTRA members o...

Get in touch to submit a question or send us your feedback. Our guest in this episode is Yvonne Muinde,  an award-winning visual effects artist whose credit list takes in a range of iconic films, including the Planet of the Apes, The Hobbit,  and Avatar.  An established fine artist, Yvonne's work has featured in several collections, including the The Chemistry of Color Collection at the Phila...

Get in touch to submit a question or send us your feedback. “A ground-breaking, innovative new contract”; that’s the headline for the deal negotiated between SAG-AFTRA, the US Actors’ union and Replica, the company using AI to create digital voice replicas. What does the deal cover? What does it omit? As the first agreement of its kind, what could it mean for actors and performers both in and outs...

Get in touch to submit a question or send us your feedback. What does it mean to have your voice or performance cloned? Is there a difference between cloning and synthesis? If I agree to the creation of my digital double, do I have any say in what it does next? And wherever it goes, will the Law be running to catch up? Put simply, do I want to be a clone?

Get in touch to submit a question or send us your feedback. The phrase "Know your worth" is often repeated among artists, performers and other freelance workers who have the responsibility for negotiating their own rates and terms of employment for every job they do.  But how do you go about valuing yourself and your work? And how do you then convey that to an employer, especially in a l...

Get in touch to submit a question or send us your feedback. Agents are the hard-negotiating, multi-tasking, contract-savvy industry experts, working to match the Talent they represent with paying clients. In what can be long contractual chains, agents provide a layer of protection for performers, who trust them to act in their best interest. Our guest this time is Daniel Hinchliffe, managing direc...

Get in touch to submit a question or send us your feedback. The EU Artificial Intelligence Act has been described as the most ambitious attempt to date at creating a legal framework for AI. We are joined this time by Dragos Tudorache, Member of the European Parliament, Vice-President of the Renew Europe Group and - as one of two Rapporteurs leading on the proposed Act - a key figure in policy maki...

Get in touch to submit a question or send us your feedback. What does the term "Buyout" mean?  What's the best way to respond to buyout requests from clients? And if you've agreed to a buyout, does that mean you consent to any and all uses - even to AI imitations of your voice/performance without additional consent or payment?   In a discussion that ranges from fertiliser to Fr...

Get in touch to submit a question or send us your feedback. In this episode, we talk about performers’ moral rights. What are they? Who is entitled to them? And can they help performers and other creatives to protect themselves and their work from potential AI abuses?

Get in touch to submit a question or send us your feedback. How celebrated artist Jake Elwes is queering AI data sets and  challenging big tech to think about gender, cultural bias and ethics in data mining through their creative practice. For more on Jake and their work, visit:  https://www.jakeelwes.com/

Get in touch to submit a question or send us your feedback. How unions are taking active steps to champion artists and performers who are facing job displacement and replacement by AI. We speak to Liam Budd, Industrial Officer for Audio and New Media within Equity , the British union for creative workers 

Get in touch to submit a question or send us your feedback. For Artists, AI offers an exciting toolkit - particularly tools  for performance synthesis. But alongside the creative opportunities looms a potential threat to their creative  futures.  Annette, Mathilde and Marcus talk with composer,  musician  and technologist, Sarah Angliss, about her integration of technology and music and her experi...

Get in touch to submit a question or send us your feedback. Why have America’s actors and writers gone on strike? And is why AI so important in the biggest Hollywood artists' strike since 1960? Tim Friedlander is founder of the National Association of Voice Artists (NAVA). Tim chats with Marcus, Mathilde and Annette about current events in the US. He explains what has led SAG-AFTRA and the Wr...