With AI, Dead Celebrities Are Working Again—And Making Millions

Can you think of a better way to get into the spirit of Halloween than listening to The Legend of Sleepy Hollow read by the ghost of James Dean?

The actor’s career may have ended tragically in 1955, but his estate is keeping his paycheck alive through artificial intelligence. Alongside the estates of Judy Garland, Laurence Olivier and Burt Reynolds, it signed with AI voice-cloning startup ElevenLabs in July as part of the company’s “iconic voices” project. The actors now narrate books, articles and other text material put into ElevenLabs’ Reader app; essentially, Garland can now read you The Wonderful Wizard of Oz or your tax return—the choice is yours.