Morgan Freeman is drawing a line in the sand. The acting legend says he’s taking legal action against people “robbing him” by using AI to clone his unmistakable voice.
“I’m a little PO’d,” he told The Guardian. “I’m like any other actor. Don’t mimic me with falseness. I don’t appreciate it and I get paid for doing stuff like that. If you’re gonna do it without me, you’re robbing me.”
Freeman says he is already pursuing several offenders. “My lawyers have been very, very busy,” he added.
The comment lands in the middle of a brewing storm. In case you missed it, last fall, Dutch performer Eline Van der Velden rolled out an AI actor named Tilly Norwood. Some insiders speculated she could become the first synthetic performer signed by a talent agency. The backlash came fast, with actors like Emily Blunt and Natasha Lyonne calling it out. Freeman has now joined the chorus.
“Nobody likes her because she’s not real. That takes the part of a real person,” he said. “It’s not going to work out very well in the movies or in television. The union’s job is to keep actors going, so there’s going to be that conflict.”
Even James Cameron, who sees AI as a potential cost saver, warns about the threat of a Terminator style future and insists machines will never replace human artists.
The fight is spreading across entertainment. In music, AI creation Xania Monet recently became the first synthetic performer to earn enough US radio airplay to debut on a Billboard chart. Reports say she has signed a multimillion dollar deal with Hallwood Media.
Meanwhile, Freeman is still very much in the acting arena. He stars in the heist sequel Now You See Me: Now You Don’t with Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher and Dave Franco. And last New Year’s Eve, he even teamed up with Al Green to deliver a special version of Let’s Stay Together for patrons at his Mississippi bar Ground Zero.
AI is here to stay, I think we can all agree on that. What do you think? Is the fight to keep AI out of entertainment/music futile?
