Judy Garland has passed away 55 years ago – but put any document, e-bookor file to a new one it APPLICATIONshe too voice it will be what you hear read to you.

Artificial text-to-speech startup ElevenLabs announced on Tuesday that its free Reader app uses AI cloning to replicate the unique voices of Garland, James Dean, Burt Reynolds and Sir Laurence Olivier.

The application, which left Out last week on iOS (with pre-registration open for Android), it takes any PDF, article or text file and transforms it into a voice that sounds like one of the iconic voices – complete with emotions and contextual meaning.

“It's exciting to see our mother's voice available to the countless millions of people who love her,” Liza Minnelli, Judy Garland's daughter and representative of the Garland Estate, said in the press release. Minnelli added, “Our family believes this will bring new fans to Mom.”

ElevenLabs worked with the estates of late stars to develop the technology.

The startup envisions users listening Sherlock Homes in Olivier's voice or The Wonderful Wizard of Oz with Garland's voice.

^{Judy Garland in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz directed by Victor Fleming. Credit: Getty Images}

Voice cloning is not a new application of AI, and some of its use cases can be problematic. For example, audio cloning has been used to attempt Lies people without money and personal information.

Connected: Scammers are using AI to clone your loved one's voice

ElevenLabs users can easily create audio deepfakes, or realistic-sounding imitations of someone's voice. In January 2023, startup RECEIVED that its technology had been used “for malicious purposes” and decided to put voice cloning behind a “pagwall”.

Eleven Labs' security pageas of this writing, it reveals that the company moderates all content through automated and human review, tracks content to anyone who misuses it, and reports illegal activity to law enforcement.

Outside of ElevenLabs, the ethics of voice cloning have recently come under scrutiny. Scarlett Johansson took legal action against ChatGPT creator OpenAI in May, when the voice of its newest ChatGPT model was “so eerily similar” to her own voice that “her closest friends and the media couldn't tell.”

Connected: Scarlett Johansson, The OpenAI controversy is just beginning: the lawyer