‘Mamma Mia’ Star Replaced With AI in BBC Project: ‘Sobering’

An actress who performed in the stage production of Mamma Mia! for over a decade has been dropped from a BBC project because they’ve decided to give the gig to artificial intelligence instead.

Musical theater star Sara Poyzer publicly shared a screenshot of an email she received from an unnamed production company which read: “Sorry for the delay—we have had the approval from BBC to use the AI generated voice so we wont need Sara anymore.” “Sobering…” Poyzer captioned the post, along with a sad face emoji.

Poyzer replied to several messages from well-wishers describing the situation as “grim” and “proper shit.” She also tagged the performing arts union Equity in her original post—the organization is running a campaign called “Stop AI Stealing the Show” to “strengthen performers’ rights in response to the rise of AI across the entertainment industry.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.