One of essentially the most attention-grabbing elements of “Roadrunner,” the Morgan Neville-directed documentary about Anthony Bourdain, was Neville’s use of generative AI to duplicate Bourdain’s voice.
Looking again now, Neville informed Wired that he noticed this as a “fun” method to “keep [Bourdain’s] voice going in the film.” But his strategy drew intense criticism — whereas the artificial Bourdain solely learn phrases that the true Bourdain had really written, Neville mentioned many viewers assumed, “Oh, they just made [expletive] up.”
“Many people told me that there were other documentary projects that were doing the same thing, that all reacted; they either changed what they were doing or put giant disclaimers over everything,” he mentioned.
Since then, the director has “assiduously avoided” utilizing AI. Even in his new documentary “Piece by Piece,” during which he dramatizes musician Pharrell’s life with Legos (sure, actually), Neville was cautious to steer clear.
“Carl Sagan in [Piece by Piece] says, ‘Pharrell’ and I was very clear to everybody that we were, with permission of his widow, going to make him say ‘Pharrell’ without using AI,” Neville mentioned. “We actually experimented to construct the word from syllables [he actually said].”
