Latest news with #Milngavie
Glasgow Times
27-05-2025
- Business
- Glasgow Times
Voice actor: 'ScotRail must stop using my voice for AI announcements'
Gayanne Potter said she felt 'violated' because she did not give permission for her voice to be used in the way it has by the company contracted by the state-owned rail company. Her voice has been used to train the new AI-generated announcements on ScotRail trains – something the Swedish tech company ReadSpeaker was covered in their contract. But in a Facebook post, Potter said: 'I discovered last week that ScotRail's new horrible AI train announcer Iona is in fact using my voice data – and nobody told me. 'I have been in dispute with a company in Sweden, ReadSpeaker, for over two years to get my voice data removed from their website.' READ MORE: Warning as no trains to run on busy Glasgow Central route The voiceover artist, whose credits include work for CBBC, Heart Scotland and STV, said that her understanding of her arrangement with ReadSpeaker was to 'provide text to speech recordings to be used for translation purposes from foreign language copy pasted into their site, and as an accessibility tool for people with visual impairment'. Potter added: 'So imagine my distress when I discover that ScotRail have installed the ReadSpeaker model Iona that contains my biometric voice data as their new announcer on their trains. 'I did not know. I was not asked. I did not consent. I was not given a choice. 'Four years ago, we didn't have the AI we use now. You cannot consent to something that doesn't exist. You should be able to withdraw your consent at any point. Readspeaker won't let me.' She said that her issue with the company was 'not about money', adding: 'It's about my identity. I feel violated. 'ScotRail should employ a real human irrespective of who it is. Why continue to choose a dreadful AI version of me when I'm right here – and I know how to pronounce Milngavie?' READ MORE: Edinburgh Marathon runners stranded by busy ScotRail trains Iona, the name given to ScotRail's AI announcer, has been used on some routes including those north of Inverness and its high-speed, inter-city services over the last 10 months. A spokesperson for the company said: 'It would be a matter for Ms Potter to take up with ReadSpeaker, who her contract is with. We have no plans to remove the voice from our trains.' ReadSpeaker chief marketing officer Roy Lindemann said: "We are aware of Ms Potter's concerns. ReadSpeaker and Ms Potter have a contract regarding the use of her voice. 'ReadSpeaker has comprehensively addressed Ms Potter's concerns with her legal representative several times in the past."
The National
27-05-2025
- Business
- The National
ScotRail must stop using my voice for AI announcements, voiceover artist demands
Gayanne Potter said she felt 'violated' because she did not give permission for her voice to be used in the way it has by the company contracted by the state-owned rail company. Her voice has been used to train the new AI-generated announcements on ScotRail trains – something the Swedish tech company ReadSpeaker was covered in their contract. But in a Facebook post, Potter said: 'I discovered last week that ScotRail's new horrible AI train announcer Iona is in fact using my voice data – and nobody told me. 'I have been in dispute with a company in Sweden, ReadSpeaker, for over two years to get my voice data removed from their website.' READ MORE: Las Vegas-bound flight forced to make emergency landing at Scottish airport The voiceover artist, whose credits include work for CBBC, Heart Scotland and STV, said that her understanding of her arrangement with ReadSpeaker was to 'provide text to speech recordings to be used for translation purposes from foreign language copy pasted into their site, and as an accessibility tool for people with visual impairment'. Potter added: 'So imagine my distress when I discover that ScotRail have installed the ReadSpeaker model Iona that contains my biometric voice data as their new announcer on their trains. 'I did not know. I was not asked. I did not consent. I was not given a choice. 'Four years ago, we didn't have the AI we use now. You cannot consent to something that doesn't exist. You should be able to withdraw your consent at any point. Readspeaker won't let me.' She said that her issue with the company was 'not about money', adding: 'It's about my identity. I feel violated. 'ScotRail should employ a real human irrespective of who it is. Why continue to choose a dreadful AI version of me when I'm right here – and I know how to pronounce Milngavie?' READ MORE: Jobs lost as luxury Highland spa goes bust amid 'mounting cost pressures' Iona, the name given to ScotRail's AI announcer, has been used on some routes including those north of Inverness and its high-speed, inter-city services over the last 10 months. A spokesperson for the company said: 'It would be a matter for Ms Potter to take up with ReadSpeaker, who her contract is with. We have no plans to remove the voice from our trains.' ReadSpeaker chief marketing officer Roy Lindemann said: "We are aware of Ms Potter's concerns. ReadSpeaker and Ms Potter have a contract regarding the use of her voice. 'ReadSpeaker has comprehensively addressed Ms Potter's concerns with her legal representative several times in the past."
BBC News
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
'Give it time' - ScotRail defends AI announcer Iona
Passengers on ScotRail trains have been noticing a new voice announcing the station arrivals and some have not been new announcer, called Iona, has recently taken over on some routes but unlike her predecessors she is not announcements were pre-recorded by a Scottish voice artist but Iona is a synthetic voice which uses an AI model to deliver typed messages in a "Scottish accent".ScotRail urged passengers to "give it time and it may grow on you". It said tricky place names such as Milngavie and Achnasheen are inputted phonetically as "Mill-guy" and "Akna-sheen" to help the software avoid embarrassing the technology has not yet been fully implemented, some passengers have already voiced their unhappiness with the passenger told the BBC Scotland: "It was weird. I could tell it was AI because it sounded so robotic."Another posted on X that the voice sounds unsure of what it is saying and questions everything. One passenger described it as an "AI lassie" that was "so horrible and unnatural".In response, ScotRail said: "Sorry you're not a fan. I love the new voice but appreciate it may not to be everyone's liking. Give it time and it may grow on you." The new announcer was developed by global technology company, ReadSpeaker, which has over 50 language iterations of its text-to-speech team also AI-generated an image that matched the name Iona to feature on their end result is a red-haired woman wearing a woolly orange scarf and green jacket stood in the middle of a Scottish glen. The technology means drivers or operators can type customised announcements on a computer and Iona then reads them out. The first service featuring Iona was trialled quietly in July 2024, but a recent extension of the technology has led to more passengers noticing the only certain services from Glasgow's train stations feature the technology. Among the first passengers to notice the change are on the Glasgow Central services to Ayr, Largs, Ardorssan, Barrhead and Paisley. From Glasgow Queen Street, Iona has been heard on trains bound for Inverness, Dundee and system is only used on ScotRail trains and will not include stations. 'Replacing real humans' Rachel Nicholson, a voice coach and former actress based in Edinburgh, said replacing human announcers with an AI voices affects both jobs and identity. "It's really sad that they want to replace real humans and put them out of work," she said. "Just because it saves money doesn't mean it's the right thing to do."Rachel has spent more than 15 years working in the creative industries and said the topic of AI voices is often a tricky one in her world."It's a bit taboo, honestly," she said."This is a real voice, a human voice, being replaced that was doing a perfectly good job." Rachel said the new ScotRail voice is clear and easy to understand but questioned whether clarity was enough."They're clearly struggling with some of our more unique names like the 'ch' in 'loch'."If someone's travelling around Scotland, don't we want them to hear those names said the way we actually say them?"For Rachel, this goes beyond speech - it's about preserving a sense of place."We should be proud of our languages and place names. What this might be doing is diluting how those names are remembered, and I think that's a real shame."Rachel, who is also an accent coach, is often asked to teach a "general Scottish" accent - something she says she finds a bit odd."I don't know any Scot who'd describe themselves as 'general'. "It feels like they're going for something neutral but it ends up feeling like a missed opportunity. Why not regional?"I don't think I could pin Iona's accent on a map." Lifelike voices Prof Peter Bell, a speech technology expert at the University of Edinburgh, said the growing power of artificial intelligence has made it significantly easier - and cheaper - to create synthetic voices."We can now give a system just a couple of sentences of someone's voice and it can immediately start to speak like them," he said. The technology is now capable of producing speech that sounds convincingly human, with companies able to generate voices at a fraction of the cost of earlier systems, he despite the progress, some synthetic voices don't always resonate with listeners."People care a lot about the identity of an accent or a speaker, so they often treat it differently from other types of AI, as they don't want to be fooled in that way," he said. "Even when a voice is very good, there's this uncanny feeling - is it a real voice, or is it not?"Prof Bell believes cost savings are a major motivator for companies switching to use new technology instead of previously hiring "expensive" voice talent. 'Local' voices onboard trains ReadSpeaker said ScotRail first made inquries three years ago about adopting their technology."We use AI just to train the voice, but at the base it is a real human speaker. That's important to us," said Roy Lindemann, co-founder of like early adoptions of text-to-speech, he said they worked with voice talent to create their synthetic Scottish firm says in future the technology could allow for "regional" and "local" voices across any network."It is definitely a path forward," Mr Lindemann said. Phil Campbell, ScotRail's customer operations director, said the new system would allow "flexibility" and "consistency" across its said: "ScotRail has always used automated announcements in relation to customer information. "It doesn't replace human interaction through either pre-recorded audio or staff on trains."
The Herald Scotland
19-05-2025
- Business
- The Herald Scotland
Glasgow has shown a sad lack of ambition with George Square proposals
The cost at £2.5 million was apparently deemed to be too high. Many millions of pounds have been spent on the hard landscaping required for the Avenues project which rumbles on and doesn't seem to have caught the imagination of the populace. I would argue that a fountain or a "wall of water" is fundamental to the success of the enterprise and a real justification for the redesign of this prime civic space. Once again the planners have shown a real lack of ambition for the city by denying it a feature that would provide a vibrant, visual asset long after Glasgow's 850th anniversary celebrations have been forgotten. David G Will, Milngavie. Zonal pricing is common sense ScottishPower and SSE's outcry against zonal pricing ("Kate Forbes slams 'damaging' North Sea profits tax", heraldscotland, May 14) and demands for 'simplicity' in the CfD scheme reek of self-interest disguised as public concern. Keith Anderson of ScottishPower's claims of a £30 billion investment threat, alongside Alistair Phillips-Davies' recent alarm over ScotWind projects, are classic scare tactics. Let's be clear: they're defending a pricing system that props up their profits while offloading costs onto struggling households and businesses. Equally disingenuous were Kate Forbes's new-found concerns about the 'damaging' impact of the UK's windfall tax. Zonal pricing is simple common sense: where energy is abundant, bills should be cheaper. Norway has proven it works – investment thrives, and consumer costs drop. Yet ScottishPower and SSE cling to a rigged system that inflates prices nationwide, shielding their margins from genuine competition. Mr Anderson's plea to avoid 'tampering' with a 'working' system is absurd. Working for whom? Certainly not the 6.5 million UK households in fuel poverty or the businesses fighting to stay afloat. Their warnings of higher costs are baseless fearmongering. Zonal pricing would cut bills where renewables flourish, reflecting real supply and demand. More importantly, a balanced energy policy – one that includes renewables alongside North Sea oil and gas, as well as coal – would reduce dependency on costly imports and stabilise prices. This is the only path to genuine energy security and affordability, not endless Contracts for Difference handouts to intermittent energy sources. If Ed Miliband backs zonal pricing, it would be his first sensible decision amid his bonkers Net Zero policies – policies that stifle North Sea oil and gas while increasing reliance on foreign imports, forcing the public and businesses to pay a premium compared to similarly placed countries. Enough is enough. Ian Lakin, Aberdeen. Read more letters These TV ads are disgusting Adverts at regular intervals are the price we pay for commercial TV. Those commercial breaks allow us to skip off into the kitchen to make the occasional cuppa. There have been times when the adverts on show have had an entertainment value with their subtlety, humour and clever use of language. Recently however our screens have been flooded with a spate of adverts which bring with them the cringe factor thanks to the coarseness and crudity in which they are couched. In particular I would like to point out those adverts which deal with female incontinence deodorants and indigestion remedies. Not one of them is characterised by subtlety, light humour or clever wordplay. Rather they are explicit in the extreme, leaving nothing to the imagination with their brash, bold and bald language. Is there anyone else who shrinks with disgust when those adverts occupy the screen to induce the cringe factor in the viewers, a reaction I imagine may well be more widespread rather than restricted to my prurient personality? There have been memorable adverts which have lived on in the national memory thanks to the smart work of those trying to capture the attention of the viewing audience for the products on display. Have those days now receded into the past and are we to be left exposed to more of the current crop of adverts which leave the TV audience cold? Do those productions exemplify the collapse of standards in public life, which is increasingly evident in all facets of our nation? Denis Bruce, Bishopbriggs. An offer easy to resist A wee word of warning to fellow readers considering disposing of "unwanted items cluttering your home". An advert I saw stated "Free uplift and a fair offer". Sounds good, however, on the "fair offer" issue, a variance of opinion may arise. In my case, I submitted medals (six), Scottish bank notes (two), watches (10) and cigarette card sets (two). In my own estimation of the value of total goods was between £400/£500. I received a call one week later. In a very civil manner the rep remarked on the good condition of many of the items (for example, the medals being worth £50-plus). Finally, when pressed he made an offer of £75 (all inclusive). A derisory offer to end a promising exchange. Hopefully my great expectations consignment will be returned to me intact ASAP. Allan C Steele, Giffnock. Keith Anderson of ScottishPower (Image: PA) Banking? What's that? May I add a necessary addendum to Ian McConnell's rose-tinted writing of his younger journalist years following the Royal Bank of Scotland ('The tumultuous tale of a great Scottish hope', The Herald, May 16)? When the Royal Bank of Scotland imploded (and it self-imploded) not a single member of its board was a professionally qualified banker, not even its managing director – who had been appointed by his predecessor in his own image. Enough said. Graeme Smith, Newton Mearns.
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Greenock cricketers' second XI record second league win in a row
GREENOCK Cricket Club's second XI made it two wins in a row with a comfortable seven-wicket win on home turf on Saturday. Aiming to build on their eight-run victory away to Galloway in their opening league fixture, Glenpark had too much in the tank for the visiting Milngavie second XI in the Greenock sunshine. Milngavie batted first, but apart from a brief flurry from their third-wicket pair, were unable to cope with Glenpark's bowling. Samim Haidary with four for 11 and the ageless Dave Sharma with four for 25 were the men that did the damage. READ MORE: Greenock cricketers chalk up fine midweek win in opening cup clash In reply, Glenpark stuttered to 22 for three, but skipper Eddie Ahmad joined Rakesh Kumar to see the team safely home to victory. Kumar finished unbeaten on 25 and Ahmad on 22. Greenock's first XI had a free day at the weekend after their away match against Glasgow Accies was recheduled to Sunday, May 18. The Accies' New Anniesland ground was unavailable on Saturday as it was hosting a prestigious rugby match against the Barbarians, celebrating the centenary of the four Accies players who featured in the Scotland team which won the Grand Slam in 1925. Greenock Cricket Club is sponsored by Cleaning Supplies 4U.
