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A future artificial intelligence product by Meta could have you chatting with celebrities. According to Bloomberg<\/em><\/a> and The New York Times<\/em><\/a>, the company is in talks with Awkwafina, Judi Dench and Keegan-Michael Key, among other celebrities from various Hollywood agencies for its AI projects. The company apparently intends to incorporate their voices into a conversational generative AI-slash-digital assistant called MetaAI, which is similar to Siri and Google Assistant.<\/p>\n Meta plans to record their voices and to secure the right to use them for as many situations as possible across Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp and even the Ray-Ban Meta glasses. Bloomberg<\/em> says negotiations have started and stopped many times, because both sides can’t seem to agree with the terms for use. For now, they seemed to have settled on a time limit, meaning any voice the company records can only be used over a set period. However, the deals with the actors could be renewed or extended by the time their contract is up.<\/p>\n The actors’ representatives are still looking to negotiate for stricter limits, though SAG-AFTRA has reportedly reached an agreement with Meta on terms. SAG-AFTRA, if you’ll recall, fought for the establishment of provisions to protect actors from the threat of job loss due to AI when it went on strike<\/a> last year. Under those terms, a company will have to pay actors and obtain their consent before it can use their AI-generated likeness. If Meta reaches a deal with the actors it’s talking to, it could pay them millions of dollars in fees.<\/p>\n Meta is looking to finalize deals before its Connect conference in September, The Times<\/em> says, where it’s expected to launch a bunch of AI products. During the same event last year, the company also introduced a chatbot platform with 28 “characters” voiced by celebrities<\/a>, including Snoop Dogg, Paris Hilton, Dwyane Wade and Kendall Jenner. The Information<\/em><\/a> reports that Meta has just quietly scrapped that project, and the celebrity chatbots’ pages on Facebook and Instagram are no longer available.<\/p>\n This article contains affiliate links; if you click such a link and make a purchase, we may earn a commission.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n