To Boost Chatbot's Appeal, Meta Turns to Celeb Voices

An AI-version of John Cena is now at your command, sort of. The actor-wrestler is one of several celebrities who've lent their voices to Meta's AI-powered chatbot, which counts some 400 million users across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads, and is expected to become the most used AI assistant in the world by the end of this year, per CNN. Previously, users could only receive text responses from Meta AI. Now, users can choose from a series of computer-generated voices as well as the voices of Cena, Judi Dench, Kristen Bell, Awkwafina, and Keegan-Michael Key.

Celebrity voices offer "a way more natural way of interacting with AI," Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Thursday while demoing the feature at Meta's annual Connect conference, per the BBC. But Washington Post columnist Geoffrey A. Fowler, who played around with the voices, describes the chatbot as giving only "a soulless imitation" of Dench's voice, even when pretending to be his girlfriend. "The conversations felt lifeless because, while Meta AI may now have the voices of certain celebrities, the AI doesn't have their distinct personalities," Fowler writes.

That's not to say Fowler wants AI to take on the characteristics of real people. Indeed, he notes there are risks in users, especially children, viewing AI as a real person or friend. The point he's trying to make is that these celebrity voices might simply be "a shortcut to trying to get a mass market of people to be more comfortable with the technology." Meta says it paid the celebs for use of their voices over several years. In another change, Zuckerberg said Meta AI can now recognize items in submitted photographs and tell users about them. (More Meta stories.)