Exclusive:'I became the AI voice of Lothian Buses, but didn't know about it', says angry Scottish voiceover artist

Second woman discovers a synthetic version of her voice being used by a Scottish transport operator - in this case, Lothian Buses.

A Glasgow voiceover artist has accused an AI company of “stealing her vocal soul” for creating an synthetic version of her voice that has been supplied to Edinburgh bus operator Lothian for announcements.

Diane Brooks told The Scotsman that other artists were likely to have been similarly treated after Midlothian-based Gayanne Potter revealed an AI version of her voice had been used by ScotRail for train announcements.

Voiceover artist Diane Brooks in her studio near Glasgow on Thursday | John Devlin/The Scotsman

Ms Brooks said her voice recordings made 11 years ago for Belgian company Acapela had been used to created a synthetic voice known as “Rhona”. She thought Rhona may also have been used by other transport operators.

“I am sorry to say and unbeknown to me, my voice is the voice on Lothian buses,” Ms Brooks said.

“I had done a text-to-speech (TTS) project in 2014 when TTS was in its infancy and had known my voice was on Acapela as Rhona, but thought it wouldn’t get used as it has been.

“I have felt very strongly for a long time that I had to do something, but felt a bit alone about it all, and what chance would I have against a big corporate company?”

Ms Brooks said when Ms Potter revealed an AI version of her voice, known as Iona, had been used by ScotRail, “it has given me the strength to do something about it, as it’s an infringement of my rights as a voiceover artist”.

ScotRail said Ms Potter’s dispute was with Swedish firm ReadSpeaker, which supplied Iona.

Gayanne Potter wants ScotRail to remove the “Iona” AI version of her voice from its train announcements | Gayanne Potter

Ms Brooks said: “The worst thing is that I have no control of my own voice. I don’t know where it will end up and basically, they have stolen my vocal soul. At first I was quite upset, but now I’m really angry. It’s not right.

“It’s a relief to know I am not the only one who is in the situation and am sure more voiceover artists will come out of the woodwork with the same issue.

“We must stick together and show a united approach to it all and we can’t let these big corporate companies take away our identities and our livelihoods.”

Ms Brooks said she was now taking legal advice “as I want to make sure I have all the ammo I need to take on these companies that really take advantage in the most profitable way for them”.

“I hope strength in numbers will truly resolve this issue as AI is becoming increasingly dominant in everything we do and as voiceover artists we must be better protected in our work,” she said.

Ms Brooks’ work has included for BBC Bitesize, TV and radio commercials, and announcements for the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

The artist said she had recorded phrases for her agent, Scottish Voiceovers, now part of Voquent, on behalf of Acapela, but she had not been clear what they were to be used for and did not remember signing a contract.

The recordings were later used by Acapela to create Rhona. Ms Brooks said: “You are trusting your agent to do the best for you and look at things.”

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Performing arts union Equity said such cases had become common, which it said infringed its members’ rights.

Liam Budd, its industrial official for recorded media, said: “It is extremely exploitative for companies to use and commercialise voice recordings to create digital replicas of artists from contracts which pre-date the development of generative AI or were not drafted explicitly for this purpose.

“Sadly, we have heard from numerous performers who have lost control over their voice or likeness, and had their privacy and likeness hijacked through the misuse of AI. Such misuse is an attack on our members’ fundamental rights.

“The union continues to call on the [UK] government for legal certainty around the use of historic contracts for AI-purposes and greater enforcement of existing GDPR [General Data Protection Regulation] laws, which give our members much-needed protections, but are currently being ignored.”

A spokesperson for Lothian, which is owned by the City Of Edinburgh Council, said: “We have two different passenger information systems in use. One uses a recording of a commissioned voice artist for mp3 playback, and the other uses a text-to-speech engine to synthesize a voice.

“Lothian is a licensed user of the text-to-speech engine, which originates from our equipment supplier and as such we were not involved in its creation.”

Lothian said the engine had been supplied by a passenger information equipment provider, which it has yet to name. It said it had “no direct agreement or contract with Acapela”.

The council said it had nothing to add. Acapela, Voquent and Scottish Voiceovers have been approached for comment.