Your Next Audio Book Might Be Read by Judy Garland
An AI company has secured an agreement with the estates of many late stage icons to use artificial versions of their voices.
Judy Garland
Favorite stage and screen stars of yesteryear may soon be releasing new content from the beyond. AI company ElevenLabs has secured agreements with the estates of Judy Garland, James Dean, Burt Reynolds, and Laurence Olivier to add AI versions of their iconic voices to their Reader App, which allows users to listen to digital text from articles, PDFs, ebooks, and more.
That means you could listen to the latest best seller read to you by movie musical icon Judy Garland, or perhaps even this very article by stage and screen legend Laurence Olivier.
The voices will only be available for use in the Reader App for individual streaming, though ElevenLabs does maintain a voice library for creating original content. The app is currently available for iOS devices, and there’s a wait list for the Android version. Downloading the app is free, and you can use the celebrity voices immediately after creating an account. It’s unclear when or if the capability will require payment.
And if your mind is immediately in the gutter, don’t get too excited. Even AI Judy Garland is not willing to curse or use naughty words on mic. Luckily, the estates have ensured that this technology won’t allow for the luminaries’ reputations to be sullied with inappropriate text.
“It’s exciting to see our mother’s voice available to the countless millions of people who love her,” says Liza Minnelli, daughter of Judy Garland, in a statement as a representative of the Garland Estate. “Through the spectacular new technology offered by ElevenLabs, our family believes that this will bring new fans to Mama, and be exciting to those who already cherish the unparalleled legacy that Mama gave and continues to give to the world.”
Watch a trailer, which includes a demo of the AI Judy Garland reading a portion of L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, below.
