‘Roadrunner’ Recreates Anthony Bourdain’s Iconic Narration With Artificial Intelligence. Is That Okay?

A gutting new documentary about Anthony Bourdain has arrived. Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain, from filmmaker Morgan Neville, hits theaters today, Friday, July 16. (It will make its way over to HBO Max at a later date.) While most who've seen it seem to agree that the piece, much like the subject matter, is enthralling, questions regarding the ethics of the production have also been raised.

Most of this attention is centered on one decision: featuring voiceover quotes from the acclaimed chef and author that, it turns out, he never actually said. How could that be? As Neville revealed to the New Yorker, he and his team employed artificial intelligence technology to recreate Bourdain's voice to add in a few missing pieces that the director thought filled in holes in the story. (For instance, he has Tony's voice read aloud a private email he sent a friend, at one point.) "We can have a documentary-ethics panel about it later," the director said in that same interview.

It turns out, now that the film is out, the time for that discussion is now. Bourdain's ex-wife, along with a few others, including many journalists, have shared dismay about the effect publicly this week.

The lines in question (there are three) are quotes that Bourdain allegedly wrote, but never actually said out loud. "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 AI, and you’re not going to know," Neville said, also to the New Yorker. And, in an interview in GQ, he also explained that his team had fed 10 hours of Bourdain's voice into an AI simulator, which, in the press-walk up to release, sent up red flags for reviewers.

Now, in response to mounting criticism, Neville has responded to Variety, saying, "There were a few sentences that Tony wrote that he never spoke aloud. With the blessing of his estate and literary agent we used AI technology. It was a modern storytelling technique that I used in a few places where I thought it was important to make Tony’s words come alive."

But some who were close with Bourdain disagree. The late chef's ex-wife, Ottavia, retweeted the Variety article, adding, "I certainly was NOT the one who said Tony would be cool with that."

Her tweet was met with sympathy and support. Nigella Lawson replied: "This is despicable. I’m so sorry you and A have this to deal with on top of everything else." More than a thousand others agreed.

As the film continues to roll out in theaters and on HBO Max, one thing is certain—the world of AI recreation, as it applies to documentaries, is a heated debate.

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