Melania Trump’s AI-Powered Memoir Drops—Because Even Ghostwriters Are Outsourced Now
Former First Lady Melania Trump bypasses human collaborators entirely, deploying synthetic narration for her new autobiography. The move sparks debate—is this literary innovation or just another celebrity cost-cutting maneuver?
Tech purists cheer the AI adoption curve accelerating beyond creative fields. Cynics note the irony: a public figure who rarely spoke now has an artificial voice doing the talking. Meanwhile, Wall Street shrugs—if AI can churn out memoirs, maybe it’ll finally write those shareholder apology letters with genuine remorse.
AI voice cloning’s “legal gray zone”
The use of AI to mimic Melania Trump’s voice highlights the technical and legal considerations of AI voice cloning, Dhrupad Das, Web3 lawyer and founding partner at Panda Law, told Decrypt.
Das said that while text-to-speech (TTS) technology is widely used and legally uncontroversial when it comes to generic narration, cloning the voice of a public figure introduces risk.
While Trump has licensed the rights for the use of her voice to ElevenLabs, Das noted that, “There’s a legal gray zone when AI mimics celebrities or political leaders, especially if their personality rights haven’t been explicitly licensed.”
“The moment you use a recognizable voice, you’re entering legal territory, even if the data came from public sources,” Das noted.
The lawyer added that the AI tech behind celebrity narrations could also be used to help scale education, accessibility, or government services.
Melania Trump and the “Take it Down Act”
Melania Trump’s audiobook runs just over seven hours and joins ElevenReader’s growing catalog of AI-narrated works, which includes publications by figures including Maya Angelou, Deepak Chopra, and Arianna Huffington.
Trump’s public reemergence comes just days after her appearance at the WHITE House for the signing of the “Take It Down Act,” a new law that criminalizes the online publication of non-consensual intimate images, including AI-generated deepfakes, and mandates takedown by platforms within 48 hours.
“This legislation is a powerful step forward in our efforts to ensure that every American, especially young people, can feel better protected from their image or identity being abused,” Melania Trump said at the signing.
