>I don’t understand, are you saying documentaries should be made to generate a loss?
No, the 'for profit' nature of this venture is just the amoral cherry-on-top.
My real problems with this type of thing are many-fold :
1) Textual messages are often times created in such a way as to be convenient rather than to be read. Inflection and tone mostly go out the window when written out, so people tend to use lots of hyperbole and metaphor to better convey nuance like sarcasm -- this can quickly make someone who is eloquent in-person look moronic in-text, but people close to the individual know better and ignore the email parlance.
2) There is a level of artistry and creative interpretation when deciding how an AI voice generates text-to-speech. What samples are used, how is the phrase tempo'd, environmental interpretation, etc. The end product is very much not-Bourdain , but it's sold to people watching the documentary as Bourdain, so it's assumed that he said these things.. which leads to :
3) Personally I believe that the post-death 'image' of anyone should only be manipulated or altered by third-party testimonial and record-level evidence.
An unaware person watching this documentary would come out of the theater with the notion that Bourdain said things that he never said.
A third party is using Bourdain's own image to sell persona/image changes to the public on his own behalf, post-death -- I have major ethical and moral qualms with this idea, even with all the express permission of those around him and his family.
Regardless of who these people are that gave permission -- they're not him. The voice/image/actions of your own persona should probably never be tampered with by someone else -- even the closest people to him can't begin to know what he'd say internally, even if they may have felt that they had a good grasp.
Now, sure, we can always argue that a celebrities image is likely sold to the companies managing them -- and I would have to agree. Legally, sure, his image likely isn't his own property, but I don't have to agree with the methodology on an ethical level, and I have a real hard time imaging that I ever will.
>Do you think the same documentary would be better if it didn’t have advertising or box-office showings?
Yes. I am less against the manipulated and possibly perjured conjuration of fake dead-people's voices when someone isn't making a profit.
(I detected a bit of snark in your question, so I replied with a bit of snark -- but it's an honest answer. Apologies if you didn't mean for it to be interpreted that way -- another incongruity in text-based-talk :) )
Just one example of the prickliness of this with the for-profit aspect in scope : an AI generated likeness of a famous voice says "Eat Snickers!" , after the family of the original voice gives all the permissions in the world to whoever may want to use it.
Tons of royalties are accrued.
Who is given the royalties?
so, tl;dr, here's the point I feel most strongly about : An unaware person watching this documentary would come out of the theater with the notion that Bourdain said things that he never said, in a way that he perhaps never would have said them. This technology, along with others like it, creates a situation in which a third party can manipulate the persona of a long-dead person in a first-person way, thus circumventing a lot of the trust checks that exist with regards to the perceived image of the now-dead.
I don't think this particular example is damaging, even if I think it's unethical -- however I do think that it's an indicator of things to come, and I believe that it is going to be heavily abused until some regulatory body makes lots of rules and regulations regarding the depiction of image of those that are no longer able to fight their own libel cases.