Family of 'Mind the Gap' voice Phil Sayer fight for AI Clone to be removed 10 years after his death
Voice actor Phil Sayer's iconic 'mind the gap' adverts have been cloned using AI, which is being fiercely fought against by his family
The family of one of the most well-known voices on London’s Transport network is fighting to have a clone of his voice removed from a website.
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Phil Sayer, who can regularly be heard telling Londoners to “Mind The Gap” on the Underground, passed away in 2016.
Earlier this year his widow, Elinor Hamilton, was made aware of an AI clone of Phil’s voice alongside a profile using his name on the website Fish Audio.
This had appeared without the permission of Phil’s family.
“All someone has done is recorded some of Phil’s voice and uploaded it to this website by ticking a box” Elinor explains. “Anyone can download it and make his voice say whatever they want, it can then end up on YouTube or TikTok.”
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Unfortunately for Elinor, it’s not as simple as requesting his voice to be removed. “They want me to prove who I am to get his voice removed and they’ve asked for his death certificate.
“It’s a very private document. I don't want them to know where or how he died.”
Elinor, who’s also a voice artist and can be heard on the Tube announcements, decided to go through another website to get Phil’s voice cloned a couple of years ago, as Network Rail looked to update.
“Things have changed since Phil died. There are new stations, there are things like vapes and E-bikes. So I was approached and asked whether we’d want to clone Phil’s voice so it could carry on being used on the network.” Elinor explains.
“Partly through legal advice, we decided it would be better to clone his voice and top up the announcements, take ownership of it. The IP of his voice is owned by Phil’s estate and the IP of the recording is owned by the studio it was recorded in.”
That cloning with the consent of the family was done through a website called ElevenLabs.
Elinor has also had her voice cloned, as well as other British Transport announcers such as Justine Harris who can be heard on LNER and David Sheppard who’s the voice of Great Western Railway.
In David’s case, his voice has been used on a YouTube video telling people to “kill yourself.”
Dr Mathilde Pavis is a legal counsel to agents, actors and unions on AI digital replicas. She’s been working with the group of affected voice artists and says they have a case against Fish Audio.
“There is such a blatant case of no permission, infringement including personal data protection rights. They should have a fairly string case to have the voice models removed.” Mathilde told LBC.
“Where it may get a bit more complex are issues around compensation. Some will have had a personal or reputational impact of misuse of their voice without consent, because who knows what content may have been generated using their voice?”
Elinor even got the AI version to recite the famous Monty Python Dead Parrot sketch.
“This is not where I thought my life would go and it’s not what Phil would want for me either. To have these arguments in my own mind about whether I’m doing the right thing by somebody who can’t speak to me anymore is really hard.”
Fish Audio has not responded to LBC’s request for a response, but Phil Sayer’s ‘clone’ is still available to users on the site and it raises more questions about the ethical use of AI and its uses for people even after they’ve died.