Carmi Levy: Dial 9-1-1 For AI (Non-emergency Edition) - January 22, 2026

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The Last Show with David Cooper 17 min 2 speakers 4 chapters transcribed

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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

David Cooper 0:01

For those who know that questioning everything includes questioning this show's existence. The Last Show with David Cooper. Are you thinking of creating deepfake videos of your favorite actor, Matthew McConaughey? Well, you might want to be careful because he's trademarked himself and he could sue you. I'm here with Carmi Levy to talk about celebrities and deepfakes and other stories from the tech industry on It's Time for Technology Time. Carmi, welcome to the program.

Carmi Levy 0:32

Oh, good to be with you, David. Definitely my best time of the week.

David Cooper 0:35

When I think of celebs that people would want to deepfake, I think like Taylor Swift or like Brad Pitt. Matthew McConaughey doesn't come to mind, but he's trailblazing here. I think it annoys him that people are stealing his voice, stealing his likeness, creating videos, creating memes. And you know what? He's got every right to be annoyed.

Carmi Levy 0:53

He sure does.

What are the implications of deepfake technology on celebrity rights?

Carmi Levy 0:53

I mean, look, people recreating their own Lincoln commercials in the Costco parking lot, probably not something he's really happy with. You know, all right, all right, all right. But like like he's got a point because AI video generators are making it ridiculously easy for anyone to create. a realistic looking video of pretty much anyone they wish. And you don't even have to know how it works. You just type a prompt and poof, out comes the video. So he went to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and he submitted a bunch of likenesses of himself. So he's standing on a porch. He's smiling. He's having a conversation. And Of course, an audio clip. All right, all right, all right. And so that way, if it's trademarked, then it's harder for someone else to use it to train AI, to use it to create AI generated assets.

Carmi Levy 1:42

And it's kind of a new weapon in the war against protecting kind of who we are in this AI world. I think good on them. And I'm hoping more people do it.

David Cooper 1:50

What's really interesting to me is Matthew McConaughey is an investor in an app that can do voice cloning and AI voice creation. If you're ever on the phone with a customer service rep and they sound really real but you're pretty sure they're a robot, it might be this product. It's called Eleven Labs. It's kind of freaky if you try it, how good it is at creating voices or cloning voices. How is the listener right now convinced they're not listening to me on 11 Labs? I don't know. I actually have tried it, Carmi. We were supposed to try it and create a fake interview. That never happened. Oh, no, we didn't. When you do it, people might think it sounds like you, but if you hear your own voice with it, it sounds odd.

David Cooper 2:29

There's just something off about it. The way you talk is like almost modeled perfectly, but not quite.

Carmi Levy 2:34

Yeah. And that's only because that's where the technology is now. But obviously, over time, it'll get better. And there's a lot of irony there, right? He's investing in this technology.

David Cooper 2:43

I want to make sure I didn't derail too much. He's an investor of these AI, you know, cloning products. And so that's kind of curious to me that he's on the one hand trying to prevent it from happening. But on the other hand, he's investing in the tech. There seems to be a contradiction there.

Carmi Levy 2:57

There is, but I guess maybe because of his involvement in the industry, he realizes the existential threat it poses to people whose careers are literally based on their likeness, based on their voice, what they look like, what they sound like, how they move. And that if that can be easily replicated digitally, then that puts their career under threat. And so he's trying to play both sides of the fence. And I think also it gives the industry more to work with because if Eleven Labs can't find a legal way to sell its products locally, And by cooperating with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and cooperating with stars like Matthew McConaughey, then it has no hope. So he's got to strike a pretty fine balance.

David Cooper 3:37

Let's go to our next story, ChatGPT. I don't know if you've heard of it. It's this really cool app. You can type things. Yeah, it's a little app I hear.