In a new Netflix documentary, The Rise of the Red Hot Chili Peppers: Our Brother, Hillel, AI has been used to recreate the voice of Hillel Slovak, the late Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist who passed away in 1988.
The documentary is billed as a celebration of Hillel and his achievements with his bandmates from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and, with permission from Hillel’s estate, AI was used to generate new recordings of his voice. Ben Felderman, the film’s director, has argued that the use of AI was a critical way to make his words feel alive.
However, viewers have had mixed emotions about the recreation of Hillel’s voice, some arguing it to be ‘unnecessary’ and ‘unsettling’. With the development of AI technology, this growing desire to use AI to either enhance a project or serve a purpose that the ‘human’ voice could perhaps not serve is something that we’ve become accustomed to seeing here at The Voiceover Gallery recently.
We’ve become educated experts in quizzing our clients to ensure: is AI the answer?
Yes, like in the case of this documentary, you can bring voices back to life. But we would always start by asking: does this serve your story? Or would the human voices of Hillel’s family and friends serve it better? Ethically, where does using his voice sit? Hillel’s estate gave permission for AI to recreate his voice; however, there is a strong debate as to whether this is a solid substitute for an individual’s own consent when it comes to something as precious as their voice and words. A similar trend we’re seeing is in the new Val Kilmer film, where he is being resurrected by AI with the support of his estate. Will what you’re creating land with the audience? We should never dismiss the intelligence of an audience, and in today’s tech-fuelled world, we are acutely accustomed to noticing if something doesn’t quite feel real – and we’re also prone to openly criticise if something doesn’t feel genuine. Combined, these all revert to the same question: just because we can do it with AI, should we?
We ask these questions on behalf of our clients because we want every project to land the way it deserves to. In a world where AI capabilities are constantly evolving, we’re passionately interrogating whether technology will genuinely serve your story or whether it’s your story that will end up serving the technology. If we believe your project requires the competitive advantage of the human voice, we’ll always be honest with you.
