{"id":120671,"date":"2025-05-21T20:13:09","date_gmt":"2025-05-21T20:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/120671\/"},"modified":"2025-05-21T20:13:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-21T20:13:09","slug":"a-gaming-youtuber-says-an-ai-generated-clone-of-his-voice-is-being-used-to-narrate-doom-videos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/120671\/","title":{"rendered":"A Gaming YouTuber Says an AI-Generated Clone of His Voice Is Being Used to Narrate ‘Doom’ Videos"},"content":{"rendered":"

On a little known YouTube channel, a breezy, British narrator is explaining the ins and outs of Doom: The Dark Ages<\/a>\u2019 story. Though not named, his voice may be familiar to video game fans as that of Mark Brown. The trouble is, Brown had nothing to do with the video.<\/p>\n

Brown, who goes by Game Maker\u2019s Toolkit<\/a>, is a content creator and developer who has covered video game design for over a decade. His channel has 220 videos, broadcast to more than 1.65 million subscribers, where he gives in-depth explanations on things like puzzle mechanics in Blue Prince or addresses UI problems in The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. (Brown has previously written for WIRED UK.)<\/p>\n

The Doom video, posted to a channel called Game Offline Lore, is not Brown\u2019s typical content. But the problem is actually bigger than that: Brown never actually narrated this video. Instead, he says, the creator of Game Offline Lore has used an AI version of his voice without his knowledge or consent. \u201cThe thought that someone else would do it in order to copy my persona in this way\u2014it’s just so weird and invasive,\u201d he says. \u201cIt’s kinda like plagiarism but more personal. It’s not my work or my labor. It’s a distinct part of who I am.\u201d<\/p>\n

AI-driven fraud is on the rise<\/a>. Deepfakes, once confined to damaging videos<\/a> affecting celebrities<\/a> and average citizens alike<\/a>, is now advanced enough<\/a> to happen in real time. As AI seeps into every aspect of our lives, from work<\/a> to emotional support<\/a>, YouTubers like Brown are facing a growing problem: theft not just of their work but of their very voices.<\/p>\n

Brown filed a privacy complaint to YouTube, which typically gives the offender 48 hours to remove their video before YouTube officially gets involved. Typically, he says, YouTube \u201chas pretty robust systems\u201d and tools to get these videos taken down. But Brown says it\u2019s been more than 48 hours since he reached out. Both videos remain live. Their creator, he says, has been removing comments where people say they\u2019ve stolen Brown\u2019s voice.<\/p>\n

YouTube spokesperson Jack Malon tells WIRED that it expanded its privacy request policy last year \u201cto allow users to request the removal of AI-generated or other synthetic or altered content that simulates their face or voice.\u201d Malon says the company is reviewing the content to determine if a violation has been made. \u201cWe’ll take action if the content violates our policies,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

WIRED was unable to find contact information for the person behind Game Offline Lore.<\/p>\n

Brown tells WIRED that his videos are often the product of more than 100 hours of work, researching material, writing scripts, recording gameplay, and editing. \u201cEach one is a significant project that takes two or three weeks to produce\u2014with no shortcuts like using AI,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

He says he learned about the Doom video after it was sent to him by someone who\u2019d watched it; they thought it sounded like an AI version of his voice and wanted to alert him. A second video that appears to feature his voice is also online, this one about the series\u2019 lore. Brown was shocked. He knew such a thing was possible\u2014Brown had made his own AI bot to replicate his voice for scratch vocals, before he replaces it with his final, recorded audio\u2014but finding someone else had lifted his voice was unbelievable.<\/p>\n

Game Offline Lore, the channel in question, is small, with 744,000 subscribers. Many of its 259 videos are shorts, and those with narration are clearly AI. But the full-length video featuring Brown\u2019s apparent AI-generated voice is more popular than many of the others, with over 60,000 views. Furthermore, Brown says, it\u2019s likely collecting \u201ca fair amount\u201d of ad money.<\/p>\n

As a content creator, Brown says, he is used to his work being lifted in various ways. He has dealt with people streaming themselves watching his videos or even flat-out uploading his work to their channels.<\/p>\n

He hasn\u2019t spoken to the person who runs Game Offline Lore. \u201cI do not believe anyone who would do this would be empathetic in the slightest,\u201d he says. \u201cMuch in the same way that it would be frustrating for someone to profit after plagiarizing your work, it’s frustrating for someone to profit from using your persona.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On a little known YouTube channel, a breezy, British narrator is explaining the ins and outs of Doom:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120672,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3163],"tags":[323,1942,53828,182,53,16,15,1644,1737],"class_list":{"0":"post-120671","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-deepfakes","11":"tag-social-media","12":"tag-technology","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-video-games","16":"tag-youtube"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114547654901913677","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}