When it comes to long-running animated comedy series like Family Guy, South Park, and The Simpsons, many of the various characters of these shows are voiced by singular people. For the sake of the former, Seth MacFarlane voices Peter Griffin, Brian, Stewie, Quagmire, and more, all while for The Simpsons, stars like Dan Castellaneta, Hank Azaria, and Harry Shearer do a lot of the heavy lifting.
To this end, the latter has recently sat down with Variety to talk about his role on The Simpsons and how he is actively working to protect his voice and likeness from being abused by artificial intelligence once he eventually passes away.
The 82-year-old voice actor, known for lending his voice to characters like Mr. Burns, Ned Flanders, Reverend Lovejoy, Principal Skinner, Smithers, Kent Brockman, Lenny, and countless others, mentioned he has "talked to legal people" about protecting his voice after his death, including exploring trademarking his voice.
Shearer continues: "It's on the menu... the whole AI thing. The problem I see with it is it's all just a very sophisticated form of mimicry. It's just statistically one word following [another]."
Do you think actors need to take the protection of their likeness and voice from AI more seriously as Shearer clearly is doing so?