On a YouTube channel a British narrator is explaining the ins and outs of Doom: The Dark Ages’ story.
Though not named, his voice may be familiar to video game fans as that of Mark Brown, content creator of Game Maker’s Toolkit
The Doom video, posted to a channel called Game Offline Lore, is not Brown’s typical content.
Brown never actually narrated this video.
Instead the creator of Game Offline Lore has used an AI version of his voice without his knowledge or consent.
“The thought that someone else would do it in order to copy my persona in this way—it's just so weird and invasive,” he says. “It's kinda like plagiarism, but more personal. It's not my work or my labor, it's a distinct part of who I am.”
AI-driven fraud is on the rise. Deepfakes, once confined to damaging videos affecting celebrities and average citizens alike, is now advanced enough to happen in real time.
Brown filed a privacy complaint to YouTube, which typically gives the offender 48 hours to remove their video before YouTube officially gets involved.
YouTube spokesperson Jack Malon tells WIRED that it expanded its privacy request policy last year “to allow users to request the removal of AI-generated or other synthetic or altered content that simulates their face or voice.”
Brown says he learned about the Doom video after it was sent to him by someone who’d watched it; they thought it sounded like an AI version of his voice and wanted to alert him.
He knew such a thing was possible—Brown had made his own AI bot to replicate his voice for scratch vocals, before he replaces it with his final, recorded audio—but finding someone else had lifted his voice was unbelievable.
Game Offline Lore, the channel in question, is small, with only 7.43 thousand subscribers.
Many of its 259 videos are shorts, and those with narration are clearly AI.
Furthermore, Brown says, it’s likely collecting “a fair amount” of ad money.
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