My Company Wants To Use My Voice To Train An Ai Model
I work for a larger company where I have become the defacto "voice" of their service systems, videos, etc. When people call in, get put on hold, get routed through a call tree, etc, it's my voice that leads them through it. I have probably over 100 of these files in their phone system. I also have voice over for many explainer videos and promotional videos that get used on the companies website, social, etc.
Voice acting at this company is not my main position. I am primarily a multimedia creator and strategist but a long while ago out of ease and necessity, (and without stroking my own ego) having a voice that lends itself well to voice work, fell into the "side role" of becoming the main VO artist. We will still contract out some talent for larger commercial spots and what-not, but people know me as "the voice of the company".
The company has been taking a major shift towards AI tools and features, having a new AI chat customers can use that they're very much behind and proud of, and now they are asking me to use my voice to train their new AI voice model.
I've always been pretty apprehensive about AI voice training and took Scarlett Johansson's side completely when that whole Open AI fiasco happened... However, I didn't think I'd be in a similar position.
Again, voice acting is not my main job duty and has always been viewed as "a thing I do on the side of my main responsibilities", but regardless it has become something I'm associated with and I've viewed as a certain level of job security, sure they could replace me if they wanted but it would come with severe headaches going through and trying to weed out and replace probably 100's of voice files, on-hold messaging, videos, etc.
So, now I'm not sure how to approach this. I am employed by the company, so technically all of the files I've recorded are "theirs". But giving them my voice as their AI voice model makes me feel like they could just wash their hands of me "scot-free" at some point in the future like I was never there.
Any thoughts on how to handle this? Am I beholden to their whims and it doesn't matter what I want? Is there something in the books I can address to give a "I'd rather not because of X" reason. I guess how would you handle this? Do I even have any recourse? I like my job and don't want to jeopardize it by "not being a team player" but also don't want to just sign over my voice to an AI model, ya'know?
Any help is appreciated, thanks!
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