Michael Caine lends voice to York deepfake research

News

Posted on Friday 21 August 2026

A study co-led in the department is using Sir Michael Caine's licensed AI voice to test how well people can tell real speech from synthetic audio.

Sir Michael Caine has lent his voice to a research project, co-led in the Department of Language and Linguistic Science at the University of York, exploring how technology can help combat harmful deepfakes.

The study is led by Dr Ben Gibb-Reid at York and Dr Jennifer Williams at the University of Southampton. It investigates how well members of the public can tell authentic human speech from AI-generated voices. Participants compare genuine recordings of Sir Michael's voice with an AI replica created and officially licensed by ElevenLabs.

The findings aim to improve how synthetic audio is identified and to strengthen protections for performers and creators whose voices, identities and likenesses are increasingly replicated by artificial intelligence. The project is funded by the YorVoice project at the University of York.

"We are becoming increasingly familiar with the signs of AI-generated images, but the human ear is not yet as well trained at identifying synthetic audio," said Dr Ben Gibb-Reid.

Read the full story on the University of York website: https://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2026/research/michael-caine-lends-voice-to-ai-deepfake-research/