Unauthorized 'David Attenborough' AI Clone Narrates Developer's Life, Goes Viral

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On Wednesday, Replicate developer Charlie Holtz combined GPT-4 Vision (commonly called GPT-4V) and ElevenLabs voice cloning technology to create an unauthorized AI version of the famous naturalist David Attenborough narrating Holtz's every move on camera. As of Thursday afternoon, the X post describing the stunt had garnered over 21,000 likes. "Here we have a remarkable specimen of Homo sapiens distinguished by his silver circular spectacles and a mane of tousled curly locks," the false Attenborough says in the demo as Holtz looks on with a grin. "He's wearing what appears to be a blue fabric covering, which can only be assumed to be part of his mating display." "Look closely at the subtle arch of his eyebrow," it continues, as if narrating a BBC wildlife documentary. "It's as if he's in the midst of an intricate ritual of curiosity or skepticism. The backdrop suggests a sheltered habitat, possibly a communal feeding area or watering hole."

How does it work? Every five seconds, a Python script called "narrator" takes a photo from Holtz's webcam and feeds it to GPT-4V -- the version of OpenAI's language model that can process image inputs -- via an API, which has a special prompt to make it create text in the style of Attenborough's narrations. Then it feeds that text into an ElevenLabs AI voice profile trained on audio samples of Attenborough's speech. Holtz provided the code (called "narrator") that pulls it all together on GitHub, and it requires API tokens for OpenAI and ElevenLabs that cost money to run. During the demo video, when Holtz holds up a cup and takes a drink, the fake Attenborough narrator says, "Ah, in its natural environment, we observe the sophisticated Homo sapiens engaging in the critical ritual of hydration. This male individual has selected a small cylindrical container, likely filled with life-sustaining H2O, and is tilting it expertly towards his intake orifice. Such grace, such poise."

Jackasses

[backslashdot]

These jackasses are going to get AI banned or highly regulated and ruin the party for the rest of us. The elites will of course continue to have access to AI.

Re:

[martin-boundary]

Good. The sooner the better. AI is a tool like a gun, not good/bad per se, but criminals without training are by far the most likely to use them for bad purposes.

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[christoban]

Great, then, like guns, only the criminals will use AI to break the law.

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[DrMrLordX]

Surprised they don't want to ban hammers.

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[odigon]

I think there is no scenario where AI can realistically get "banned". The genie is out of the bottle, may as well know what it is capable of.

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[Motleypuss]

If people can't use tools responsibly, like AI or guns, by all means take them away. Sadly, this is why we can't have nice things. It only takes a couple of bad apples to spoil the barrel, but that's humanity all over.

Humor and technology combined

[Local ID10T]

It's awesome.

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[usedtobestine]

Next they should use the same process to start narrating x-rated movies.

And yet

[fahrbot-bot]

From TFA:

We've previously covered voice cloning technology, which is fraught with ethical and legal concerns where the software creates convincing deepfakes of a person's voice, making them "say" things the real person never said.

Comedians doing impressions do this all the time ...

So, as long as the fake isn't represented as being by the real/actual person, w/o permission anyway, then people need to settle down. Just because a tool can be used to do bad things, doesn't make it a bad tool. The clip is funny, but I can see where its use could go off the rails. On the other hand, this could be used by someone's estate to further monetize (or other rational) that person after their death -- for better or worse.

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[djinn6]

this could be used by someone's estate to further monetize (or other rational) that person after their death

They're absolutely salivating at this possibility.

Though there's no need to wait for him to die. He can start doing it himself. I'm sure there's way more requests for his voice than he has time to voice them.

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[awwshit]

I could see a stand-up comic with the mic connected to something like guitar pedals, each button enabling a different voice change in real time.

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[twosat]

Here's a popular David Attenborough impersonator video from 6 years ago https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

David Attenborough discovers Manchester BBC spoof

[Bruce66423]

From 1965... https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

MST3K

[Logger]

Now I want my TV to have a built-in MST3K feature that I can enable for any show that I'm watching.

Meh.

[newcastlejon]

The Attenborough Lore videos on YT were more fun. (David Attenborough giving sermons on 40K lore).
Perhaps if the channel didn't have Attenborough in the name he wouldn't have had to take them all down.

You got the better story

[skam240]

Yes, this is a better story than the Slashdot post. Hearing Attenborough break down the logistics of a Tyranid hive fleet cracks me up and there are tons of these videos for all sorts of 40k lore.

slight interest

[mapkinase]

The only remotely interesting part of the story would have been famous popularizor's reaction.

But no.

Sounds tedious

[TJHook3r]

Once we realise that AI can do a good impression, it's imperative that there is actually some merit in the video. As any good film director knows, you can't just put CGI on the screen and expect crowds to be wowed - we are mostly not idiots!