Documented Cases of AI Stealing Voices
When There Is No Accountability, Careers Are Compromised
After Furlong first learned of Apple’s algorithms being written into Findaway agreements early this month, he contacted Isobel Starling, an author he’d worked with who distributed titles with the company. She was shocked to find a clause titled “Machine Learning” near the bottom of her lengthy agreement with Findaway.
Starling says the company had not specifically informed her about that part of the agreement, nor compensated her for it. She believes she missed it because it was buried beneath more conventional sections prohibiting hate speech and sexually explicit material. Although Furlong narrated the audiobook and his voice would potentially be ingested by Apple’s machine learning algorithms, he was not party to the agreement that was signed by Starling as the book’s rights holder.
Findaway’s machine learning clause says rights holders can revoke that part of the agreement. Starling raced to email the platform to say she’d like to exercise that right, and soon received a response saying that the company had submitted her opt-out request to Apple. Furlong says Findaway has not responded to an emailed request to withdraw all copies of his voice from Apple’s servers.
