NPR host David Greene accuses Google of stealing – Business News
A longtime NPR radio host is suing Google for allegedly stealing his voice for the male podcaster voice in its AI podcast instrument, in line with a swimsuit filed in Santa Clara County, Calif.
David Greene – the previous host of “Morning Edition” and “Up First,” and present voice of KCRW’s “Left, Right & Center” – mentioned he first heard of NotebookLM, Google’s AI instrument that churns out automated podcasts on demand, when a former colleague emailed him.
“So…I’m probably the 148th person to ask this, but did you license your voice to Google?” Greene’s former co-worker wrote in an electronic mail in fall 2024, after the instrument’s launch. “It sounds very much like you!”
Former NPR host David Greene is suing Google. WGALTV
According to the lawsuit, Greene’s inboxes have been quickly flooded with messages from household, mates and colleagues asking whether or not Greene had struck a deal with Google to make use of his voice to coach its podcast instrument – which has a male podcaster voice and a feminine one which converse.
“I was, like, completely freaked out,” Greene advised the Washington Post. “It’s this eerie moment where you feel like you’re listening to yourself.”
“I’m not some crazy anti-AI activist. It’s just been a very weird experience.”
Google, which launched its automated podcast instrument in 2024, denied the claims within the lawsuit, which was filed Jan. 23.
“These allegations are baseless. The sound of the male voice in NotebookLM’s Audio Overviews is based on a paid professional actor Google hired,” Google spokesperson José Castañeda advised The Post.
Greene – who landed his first job at NPR in 2005 – mentioned the male podcast voice on NotebookLM sounded similar to him, with the identical cadence and intonation and occasional “uhs” and “likes.”
“My voice is, like, the most important part of who I am,” Greene advised the Washington Post, including that his spouse’s eyes popped when he performed the AI podcast for her.
Google’s NotebookLM makes use of AI to churn out podcasts. Google
His lawsuit alleges however doesn’t offer proof that Google spoofed his voice for its AI-powered podcast generator.
The grievance cites an unnamed AI forensic firm that used its software program to research audio from NotebookLM – giving it a 53% to 60% ranking that Greene’s voice was used to coach the bot. This is a “relatively high” confidence ranking, in line with the lawsuit.
Greene’s lawsuit is simply the newest to query a main tech firm over doable copyright infringement in its coaching of AI instruments.
Scarlett Johansson threatened legal motion towards OpenAI in 2024, when it launched a “Sky” chatbot voice that sounded just like the well-known actress – after she turned down an offer from the company to voice one of its upcoming bots. OpenAI finally wiped Sky from its platform.
Google denied the claims in Greene’s lawsuit. REUTERS
Social media platform X, previously often called Twitter, confronted backlash in 2024 after sexually specific “deepfake” photographs of Taylor Swift have been considered tens of millions of occasions on the app.
The platform quickly eliminated the singer’s identify and associated phrases from its search bar – although one of the AI-generated photographs had already been considered 47 million occasions earlier than it was taken down.
Greene’s lawyer – Joshua Michelangelo Stein, a accomplice at Boies Schiller Flexner – can also be representing e book authors together with comic Sarah Silverman and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates of their AI copyright lawsuit towards Meta.
“We have faith in the court and encourage people to listen to the example audio themselves,” Stein advised the Washington Post.
Stein didn’t instantly reply to The Post’s request for remark.
