David Greene Sues Google Over AI Podcasting Tool
A former NPR host, David Greene, has filed a lawsuit against Google, claiming the tech giant illicitly used male podcasters’ audio for its AI podcasting tool. The lawsuit was submitted in Santa Clara County, California.
Greene, who previously hosted “Morning Edition” and “Up First,” and is currently the voice for KCRW’s “Left, Right & Center,” learned about Google’s NotebookLM—an AI-driven tool that creates on-demand automated podcasts—through a former colleague’s email.
“I might be the 148th person to ask this, but did you license your voice to Google?” his colleague inquired in an email after the tool’s launch in fall 2024. Greene was surprised to see so many people reach out, asking if he had made a deal to use his voice for the new tool that integrates voices of male and female hosts.
“I was completely taken aback,” Greene shared, adding, “It’s an eerie moment where you feel like you’re hearing your own voice.”
He clarified that he isn’t against AI, saying, “I’m not some crazy anti-AI activist. I just had a very strange experience.”
In response to the lawsuit, filed on January 23, 2024, Google has denied the allegations. A spokesperson, Jose Castañeda, stated, “These allegations are unsubstantiated. The voice you hear in NotebookLM’s audio summaries comes from a paid professional actor hired by Google.”
Greene expressed that the male voice featured in NotebookLM sounded strikingly similar to his own, noting the cadence and intonation, even the occasional filler words like “um” or “like.” He described his voice as a core aspect of his identity, remarking that his wife was shocked when she heard the AI podcast.
The lawsuit claims that Google manipulated his voice for its AI podcast generator but does not present concrete evidence. It references an anonymous AI forensics company that purportedly analyzed NotebookLM’s audio, suggesting a 53% to 60% likelihood that Greene’s voice was used to train the AI—a rating deemed “relatively high” according to the complaint.
This lawsuit continues a trend of legal challenges targeting major tech firms over copyright issues related to training AI systems. For instance, actress Scarlett Johansson threatened legal action against OpenAI in 2024 after the launch of a chatbot voice resembling her own, following her rejection of an offer to voice future bots. OpenAI subsequently removed that bot from its platform.
Additionally, in 2024, the social media platform X faced criticism after explicit deepfake images of Taylor Swift circulated widely, racking up millions of views. While the platform took action to remove the singer’s name from its search, some of those images had already garnered significant attention.
Greene’s attorney, Joshua Michelangelo Stein, is also involved in copyright litigation against Meta on behalf of several book authors, including comedian Sarah Silverman and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates.
Stein mentioned, “We trust the courts and encourage people to listen to sample audio for themselves,” although he hasn’t provided further comments yet to the media.
