Judy Garland passed absent 55 decades ago — but put any doc, e-guide, or file into a new AI application, and her voice will be what you hear examining to you.

Textual content-to-speech AI startup ElevenLabs declared on Tuesday that its no cost Reader App utilizes AI cloning to replicate the exclusive voices of Garland, James Dean, Burt Reynolds and Sir Laurence Olivier.

The app, which arrived out final 7 days on iOS (with preregistration open up for Android), normally takes any PDF file, short article or text and transforms it into a voiceover that appears like 1 of the iconic voices — finish with emotion and contextual comprehension.

“It really is enjoyable to see our mother’s voice accessible to the many tens of millions of persons who enjoy her,” Liza Minnelli, daughter of Judy Garland and consultant of the Garland Estate, reported in the push launch. Minnelli additional, “Our loved ones thinks that this will convey new followers to Mama.”

https://www.youtube.com/look at?v=Zo5-rhYOlNk

ElevenLabs labored with the estates of the late stars to establish the know-how.

The startup envisions users listening to Sherlock Properties in Olivier’s voice or The Superb Wizard of Oz in Garland’s voice.

^{Judy Garland in the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz directed by Victor Fleming. Credit score: Getty Visuals}

Voice-cloning isn’t a new application of AI, and some of its use situations can be problematic. For example, audio cloning has been made use of to attempt to rip-off persons out of revenue and own facts.

Associated: Scammers Are Applying AI to Clone Your Beloved One’s Voice

ElevenLabs customers can easily make audio deepfakes, or practical-sounding impersonations of someone’s voice. In January 2023, the startup acknowledged that its know-how experienced been employed “for malicious functions” and made the decision to place voice-cloning at the rear of a paywall.

ElevenLabs’ safety webpage, as of this composing, discloses that the company moderates all content material by means of automatic and human assessment, traces material back again to everyone misusing it and studies illegal exercise to legislation enforcement.

Exterior of ElevenLabs, the ethicality of voice-cloning has just lately occur below scrutiny. Scarlett Johanssen took legal action against ChatGPT-maker OpenAI in May well when the voice of its newest ChatGPT design was “so eerily related” to hers that her “closest close friends and news outlets could not tell the difference.”

Similar: Scarlett Johansson, OpenAI Controversy Just Starting off: Law firm