Sophie Scamps (Mackellar, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

My beautiful electorate of Mackellar on Sydney's Northern Beaches is not only a nature lover's paradise; it is also an absolute hub of arts and culture. So many of Australia's accomplished artists, from musicians and painters to writers and actors, call Mackellar home. The fine arts have a long and treasured history on the Northern Beaches, and they enrich all our lives daily.

But we are at a time where the creative community is often doing it tough on many fronts. Recently, I was visited by a local group of voice actors and a representative from the Australian Association of Voice Actors. Voice actors are people who lend their voices to TV and radio programs and commercials, podcasts, movies, audiobooks, video games and more. They came to see me because of the rapid and alarming trend they are seeing in their industry: the use of artificial intelligence to clone and usurp actors and famous people's voices.

For example, as reported in the Sydney Morning Herald in December 2022, Cooper Mortlock landed a steady gig as one of five voice artists working on an animated online series. He signed a contract for 52 episodes, to be recorded over 12 months, but, when it reached episode 30, his contract was cancelled. Then, about a year later, the producer released another episode, using an AI clone of his voice and the voices of the other actors. Even Scarlett Johansson recently alleged that OpenAI used an AI generated version of her voice for its personalised digital assistant. This happened after she had declined permission for her actual voice to be used in the app.

As it now stands, 90 per cent of voice actors in Australia are moderately to extremely concerned by the potential of the theft of their intellectual and creative work. Sadly, this is already happening, and voice actors' art and livelihoods are under real threat. The Australian Association of Voice Actors recently gave evidence to a Senate committee on artificial intelligence, stating that the jobs of around 500 Australian voice actors are already in danger from AI.

Australia is lagging far behind other regions of the world when it comes to the protection of personally identifiable information. We need to follow the lead of the EU and their world-leading General Data Protection Regulation, whereby voice is regarded as a special type of biometric personal data for which consent of use should be through an explicit opt in, should be renewed regularly and must be 100 per cent independent of work contracts. This is an issue that needs urgent, decisive action and legislation. (Time expired)

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