Some Fans Aren't Happy With How Anthony Bourdain's Voice Was Recreated In The New Documentary

Early reviews of the new documentary film ROADRUNNER about the late food mogul Anthony Bourdain were overwhelmingly positive. Upon its official release last week, though, it started to get some backlash particularly after filmmaker Morgan Neville said he used artificial intelligence technology to create some quotes in Anthony's voice.

In an interview with The New Yorker, Neville explained how his team "created an A.I. model of his [Bourdain's] voice" because there were three quotes wanted for the film that had no previous recordings before. By sending a software company hours of recordings and footage, they were able to splice together these quotes in Anthony's voice.

"If you watch the film, other than that line you mentioned, you probably don’t know what the other lines are that were spoken by the A.I., and you’re not going to know,” Neville told The New Yorker: “We can have a documentary-ethics panel about it later.”

Neville doubled down on his decision to replicate Anthony's voice using this technology and said he checked with his widow and literary executor to make sure it was OK. In a tweet posted on July 16, Ottavia Bourdain, Anthony's ex-wife, denied ever giving her consent. "I certainly was NOT the one who said Tony would have been cool with that," she wrote.

The voice was not used to create brand new quotes; rather it was used to create voiceovers of quotes or excerpts Anthony had said or written before previously, and the use of artificial intelligence in a non-fiction, documentary-style film is sparking debate.

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