One of the attention-grabbing facets of “Roadrunner,” the Morgan Neville-directed documentary about Anthony Bourdain, was Neville’s use of generative AI to copy Bourdain’s voice.
Wanting again now, Neville informed Wired that he noticed this as a “enjoyable” approach to “maintain [Bourdain’s] voice going within the movie.” However his strategy drew intense criticism — whereas the artificial Bourdain solely learn phrases that the actual Bourdain had really written, Neville mentioned many viewers assumed, “Oh, they simply made [expletive] up.”
“Many individuals informed me that there have been different documentary tasks that have been doing the identical factor, that each one reacted; they both modified what they have been doing or put large disclaimers over the whole lot,” he mentioned.
Since then, the director has “assiduously prevented” utilizing AI. Even in his new documentary “Piece by Piece,” wherein he dramatizes musician Pharrell’s life with Legos (sure, actually), Neville was cautious to steer clear.
“Carl Sagan in [Piece by Piece] says, ‘Pharrell’ and I used to be very clear to everyone that we have been, with permission of his widow, going to make him say ‘Pharrell’ with out utilizing AI,” Neville mentioned. “We really experimented to assemble the phrase from syllables [he actually said].”
