Meta uses celebrities to voice AI chatbot

Celebrities, including Dame Judi Dench, John Cena and Awkwafina will voice Meta’s new technology Meta AI, according to an announcement made by Meta's chief executive Mark Zuckerberg at its annual conference.

Meta AI, a powered AI assistant similar to ChatGPT, will be rollied out as part of an update to Meta’s advanced Llama model. It will be able to give its giving responses to users by using celebrities’ voices.

The move is the the tech giant's second attempt to incorporate celebrities’ voices into its technology. In September 2023, the firm attempted to use voices of stars such as Kendall Jenner and Snoop Dogg for a series of chatbots to be used in its Messenger service.

Zuckerberg said at the time that the chatbots would have "personality" and specialise in certain subjects, like holidays or cooking advice, but the firm decided to pull out the plug a year after its launch.

The new Meta AI chatbots will include a range of superstars that users will be able to choose as voice options, including actor Kristen Bell and comedian Keegan-Micheal Key.

“I think that voice is going to be a way more natural way of interacting with AI than text," Zuckerberg told attendees.

Other Meta AI’s features will include users being able to ask questions about their photos and receive information about them and ask the chatbot to edit them.

An image editing feature will allow users to alter photos by telling the Meta AI what changes they want.

The annual conference also saw Zuckerberg present Meta’s set of smart glasses Orion, which the chief executive described as "the most advanced glasses the world has ever seen."

Orion will include features such as hand-tracking and a voice and wrist-based interface.

As well as Orion, he showed off the updates of a pair of smart glasses developed with Ray-Ban that will be able to do live translation. The presentation saw Zuckerberg speaking in English to Mexican martial artist Brandon Moreno replying in Spanish, with the conversation translated in real time.

According to Meta, the feature will allow people to dub their videos in other languages to look like native speakers, with lips movements matching the translation.

Meta also announced an entry-level version of its Quest line of mixed-reality headsets, with prices for the new Quest 3S starting at $300 (£225).

"We are trying to build a future that is more open, more accessible, more natural, and more about human connection," Zuckerberg said. "This is the continuation of the values and ideas that we have brought to the apps and technology that we have built over Meta's first 20 years."

The company said that Meta AI has currently 500 million users, with Meta planning to pour around $40 billion on new products this year.

Earlier this week, more than 600,000 people, including several celebrities, have fallen for an online hoax by reposting a fake Instagram message that claims to deny Meta the right to use their images for AI training purposes.

NFL star Tom Brady, actor James McAvoy and actress Julianne Moore were among those who shared the “Goodbye Meta AI” viral story template, as they through that by posting the message they would stop their data from being used to train AI.



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