Hollywood’s voices are coming to a chatbot near you

Meta is reportedly offering Hollywood stars such as Judi Dench, Awkwafina, and Keegan-Michael Keymillions of dollars to license their iconic voices for the company’s AI projects. (The three are among the celebrities currently in talks, though deals haven’t yet been struck.)

While the purpose of these voices is still unclear, Bloomberg suggested that they could power a Siri or Alexa-like personal assistant.

Meta has begun incorporating its generative AI model, Llama, into its apps: Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp. But its negotiations with Hollywood talent could rouse new tensions between actors — especially voice actors — and AI companies. Just last year, actors and writers went on strike against Hollywood studios over their use of AI, and video game voice actors just started striking last week.