Technical Details
A group of professional voice actors, podcasters, and independent journalists have filed a collective lawsuit against Google. The plaintiffs include well-known actress Lindsey Dorcus, theatrical actress and reader Victoria Nassif, and a group of renowned investigators and journalists.
Background and Context
The plaintiffs accuse the tech giant of massively unauthorized use of their voices to train commercial AI models. The lawsuit alleges that Google grossly violated the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act.
Industry Impact
Google's voice-based technologies now directly compete with the plaintiffs in professional markets where they earn a living. For example, the Google Cloud Text-to-Speech service is being actively licensed by audiobook publishers as a cheap alternative to live human reading, depriving professional voice actors of work.