Matt Lucas and Hugh Bonneville among actors calling for law on AI voice cloning

A group of actors and performers has gone public with a blunt ask: give people in the UK a legal right to own their voice. The letter, signed by more than 80 names including Matt Lucas, Hugh Bonneville and Nicola Coughlan, is aimed at the UK government and calls for new legislation to stop AI from copying voices without permission.

The worry is simple enough, even if the tech behind it is not. Voice clones are made by training AI on real recordings, and the source says some rough versions can be produced in minutes from only a few seconds of audio. Better fakes take longer, but the basic point is that a voice can now be taken, copied and reused with very little friction.

Alice Sockett, an audiobook narrator who helped start the campaign, said the risk is existential for the industry. She described her own voice as public but unprotected, and said voice theft is increasing every week. Siobhán McSweeney echoed that frustration, arguing that the government is falling behind and that AI should be used alongside performers, not as a replacement for them.

The government’s response was careful. A spokesperson said digital replicas can help creative industries, but can also cause harm, and pointed to a planned consultation on how to deal with those harms while still allowing legitimate innovation. That leaves the UK in the usual holding pattern: everyone can see the problem, but the law is still catching up.

This debate has been building for months. In June, lawyer Dr Mathilde Pavis warned that UK law was close to the mark but still did not fully protect voice, face or identity. At the same time, not everyone sees cloning as a threat. Yvonne Johnson, who lost her voice to motor neurone disease, said having it replicated by AI brought her closer to her family. And in Washington state, Pam Cronrath used the same sort of tech to have a digital version of her husband speak at his wake.