NPR Host David Greene Sues Google Over AI Voice That Mirrors His Own

Longtime NPR host David Greene has taken legal action against Google, alleging that the tech giant unlawfully replicated his voice to create an AI-generated podcast voice for its NotebookLM tool. According to The Detroit News, Greene, who has been the voice of Morning Edition for over a decade, claims Google used publicly available audio clips — including interviews, podcasts, and NPR broadcasts — to train its machine learning models without his permission or compensation. The resulting AI voice, described by Greene as "uncannily similar" to his own, is now offered as a default male voice option in NotebookLM, Google’s AI-powered research and note-taking application designed for podcasters and writers.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., asserts violations of the right of publicity, unfair competition, and misappropriation under both federal and state law. Greene’s legal team argues that his voice is a unique and commercially valuable asset, cultivated over 25 years of professional broadcasting. "I didn’t spend decades perfecting my tone, pacing, and inflection so that a corporation could monetize it without asking," Greene said in a statement obtained by The Washington Post. "This isn’t just about voice cloning — it’s about consent, control, and the future of human identity in the age of AI."

Google has not yet issued a formal public response to the lawsuit, but internal documents referenced in court filings suggest NotebookLM’s voice model was trained on a dataset that included over 10,000 hours of public radio content, with Greene’s recordings being among the most frequently sampled due to his high profile and clear enunciation. Experts in AI ethics, including Dr. Lena Chen of Stanford’s Center for Digital Ethics, note that Greene’s case is one of the first major legal challenges to the use of public figures’ voices in generative AI without explicit consent. "There’s a legal gray zone around voice as intellectual property," Chen explained. "But when an AI clone becomes indistinguishable from the original — and is used commercially — courts may be forced to redefine what constitutes ownership of identity."

The issue extends beyond Greene. As highlighted by Yahoo News, similar controversies have emerged in recent months, including OpenAI’s controversial use of a voice model resembling actress Scarlett Johansson for its ChatGPT voice feature — a case that was later withdrawn after public outcry. These incidents underscore a growing tension between technological innovation and personal rights in the digital age. While companies argue that training AI on publicly available data falls under fair use, critics counter that the commercialization of human likeness — especially in contexts like podcasting or customer service — constitutes a form of digital exploitation.

Greene’s legal team is seeking injunctive relief to remove the voice model from NotebookLM, as well as monetary damages for lost licensing revenue and emotional distress. The case could set a precedent for how AI developers handle voice data, potentially forcing platforms to implement stricter consent protocols or pay royalties to voice owners. For now, Greene remains on air with NPR, but his lawsuit has sparked a broader conversation among journalists, podcasters, and content creators about who owns their voice in the algorithmic era.

As AI voice technology becomes more accessible and sophisticated, Greene’s case may become a landmark moment in digital rights law — not just for broadcasters, but for anyone whose voice is now a potential commodity in the machine learning economy.