Voices for Sale: McConaughey and Caine Step Into the AI Arena
Hollywood legends Matthew McConaughey and Michael Caine lend their voices—literally—to ElevenLabs, sparking debate over art, ethics, and the future of storytelling.
In an age where sound travels faster than truth, Matthew McConaughey and Michael Caine are taking their voices somewhere few have dared—into the algorithm. The two actors have joined forces with ElevenLabs, the AI audio company turning the human voice into licensed code.
McConaughey, who’s also investing in the company, will use the tech to bring a Spanish-language version of his reflective newsletter Lyrics of Livin’ to life—still spoken in his signature drawl, only now in another tongue. “We can look up from our screens and connect through something as timeless as humanity itself — our voices,” he said in a statement that landed somewhere between optimism and oracle.
Caine, meanwhile, has signed on to the company’s “Iconic Voice Marketplace,” a new platform that lets creators license the voices of the dead and the living. His digital self will now be available for narration, ads, or who knows what future medium—one that speaks in perfect diction, untouched by fatigue or age. “It’s not about replacing voices,” said Caine, “it’s about amplifying them.”
But the industry is divided. For some, it’s immortality through innovation; for others, it’s a death knell for working voice actors. The fear: that a century of performance art could be replaced by cloned echoes—polished, sellable, and eerily eternal.
ElevenLabs, now valued at $6.6 billion, calls it progress. Artists call it something else: the sound of a new kind of silence, where voices live forever but the people behind them fade away.
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