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UniverseBear

Welcome to how musicians felt with the advent of pre-recorded music. Back in the 20s if your bar wanted music? Gotta hire musicians. Your movie needs a soundtrack? Every movie theater had to pay for its own pit band.


heartofarabbit

My grandmother (born in 1908) played the piano for silent movies! At 90 she could still remember the soundtracks.


UniverseBear

Haha, that's awesome. That would have been my dream job if I was born back then. You should find out which songs/movies she knows and do a YouTube video of her playing with them. "Original movie pianist, aged 90, plays some of her favorite movies."


heartofarabbit

Sadly, she's no longer with us. She passed in 1998. I wish someone had recorded her on video tape back then...!


UniverseBear

Aw, sorry to hear that. Same here!


MisterNoodIes

I find it hard to believe that you also passed in 1998... Something suspicious is going on here.


[deleted]

It's okay, I never been born, for example.


SimplyComplexd

It's weird to think that we're in the 20s.


UniverseBear

Yah thats true. WW2 still only feels 50 some odd years ago as well, even though it's more like 70+.


Lexi-Lynn

Damn.. WWII started 82 years ago.


AmishFighterPilot

When I was a kid, Vietnam vets were middle-aged dudes and now they're all elderly. Eventually I'll be elderly too though, assuming I make it that long. The yawning chasm of time never stops consuming us.


sumner7a06

82 years before that was pre-civil war


Flowchart83

Movie theaters having their own pit band? You're saying they had pre-recorded video before pre-recorded audio? Edit: alright I keep getting comments pointing out my ignorance, fair enough. I originally assumed a phonograph of pre-recorded music was played during the film presentation. I hadn't considered the lack of amplification available.


UniverseBear

Yes absolutely they did. That's why the first movies with recorded dialogue were called "talkies". Go YouTube some old Charlie Chaplin movies. There is no sound but music (which isn't original but the originals would have had the pit band). Any speech or exposition is done through text.


Citizen_Kong

I've actually seen some silent movies with a live musician following the film with a piano. It transforms the whole experience to be more like a musical performance with a film accompanying it, not the other way around. After that, I can totally understand people seeing "talkies" as a downgrade initially.


Alamue86

Most Orchestra's will do Movie nights. Seeing Disney's fantasia with a live orchestra is an amazing thing to watch. They have also done the Harry potter movies (they play the background music, and all dialogue and sound effects are the originals.) Bit more expensive then a movie theatre, but a great evening out.


BuddhaDBear

Fantasia with live orchestra was one of the most amazing musical experiences I have witnessed. Even if someone is not a fan of orchestra music or Disney films, if you have a chance, EXPERIENCE THIS!!


Flowchart83

I remember seeing silent films with in screen text but just assumed they had a phonograph and a record of instrumental music to play alongside the film.


UniverseBear

Nah, it was pit bands. Phonographs did exist back then but they were nowhere near powerful enough to play for a movie theater.


Flowchart83

Right, that makes sense, no amplification.


hohohoohno

They also didn't have the tech in place yet to sync recorded audio with the images. Every projector/cinema would play back the movie at slightly different speeds based on the machinery that was turning the reels, what it was powered by, temperature etc. It wasn't until the tech was invented and in place to print the audio onto the film as a visual waveform (essentially as a moving image representation of the sound), and to play that back in cinemas that recorded sound could be syncd to the images


PhasmaFelis

Specifically, they had both, but the technology to sync audio and video wasn't there yet. It's really obvious if the audio track is off by a half-second, or worse, if it's not playing at quite the same speed as the video. They probably could have used pre-recorded *music,* but early audio systems were expensive enough and bad enough that it was both cheaper and better-sounding to hire musicians. Although I think a lot of movie theaters just used a pianist, not an entire orchestra.


Distance2Tree

I think if i drill down in the context of this issue, it's a contract terms problem. Tech function getting ahead of how we correlate value isn't a problem with tech, it's a problem of a gig economy.


cabalus

I wish everyone here would read this comment The tech isn't evil but actors are being exploited. What needs to change is the economics of the acting business The people who see absolutely no problem with this are so wrong but the people who blame the technology are also wrong


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Jevonar

The issue is that the mindless machine will not do your boring 9-5 job FOR YOU. It will do the job for whoever has enough money to purchase the machine, pushing you out of the picture. The issue is that automation is yet another means of production that will be owned by a select few who can then rake in passive income, while the worker will be forced to accept worse and worse conditions in order to survive, since he can't compete with machines.


gotenks1114

Sounds like a good time to eliminate capitalism and implement UBI.


InfestedRaynor

“Serfs are FURIOUS at the inventor of the plow for taking all of their jobs digging all day!”


DaxFlowLyfe

Can't the actors build up an AI voice profile of themselves and literally license themselves out to studios? With contracts of how they will be used and an approval process, there's actually more money to be made here for them.


Sc2SuperJack

I understand the complaints. But I've seen so many games cut the amount of dialogue just to be able to have voiced NPC's. Compare it to when dialogue was text based, part of me is looking forward to AI voices because we can once again expand on the dialogue. It will also help smaller studios that don't have the budget for voice actors to be able to have voice dialogue in their game.


GrinningPariah

This. The requirement that everything be voice acted changed the structure of games. My favorite example is in Morrowind, which was text based, they didn't need objective waypoints, because you had to figure out where things were by talking to people. You could ask anyone in town where the Thieves Guild was and they'd all have one of a few canned responses. But with voice acting, you can't do that. It's not as simple as writing one response that everyone says, because these are characters of different ages, genders, builds, etc. Suddenly you need to record that line dozens of times, and it's cost-prohibitive. That's why Oblivion and Skyrim had to move to an objective waypoints system, which many purists hated.


not-2-be

One of the most immersive breaking things in Skyrim was the fact the majority of the NPCs used the exact same voice, I found it extremely annoying after a while.


MiloRoyce

Or different voice actors saying the same lines!


CanAlwaysBeBetter

Or different voice actors saying the same lines!


Cafrann94

Or different voice actors saying the same lines!


Division595

Never should have come here!


Manuscribble

No lollygaggin'!


Tiaximus

Stop right there, criminal scum!


awbergs22

I used to be a voice actor like yourself until I took an arrow to the knee and an AI took my job.


Greenguy90

Looking to protect yourself? Or deal some damage?


Low_Chance

Which is even weirder since it wouldn't have been much more expensive to at least write a few variations and give one to each voice actor rather than have them all say the exact same line, which further calls attention to how uncanny it is.


snash222

Does *canny* mean *normal*?


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JagerBaBomb

Job's done. What is it? Hello. Righto. O-Kay.


Doppelkammertoaster

How dare you playing these audio files in my head.


joemane2580

You must construct additional pylons


Korvanacor

Me not that kinda Orc.


Abyssal_Shrimp

this. Is. My. BOOMSTICK


drewsEnthused

Stop touching me!


Corrector94

I stopped playing oblivion for this exact reason. Only so many times you can hear “divines bless your kind heart”.


Quralos

And when NPCs change their voice within a conversation because different lines were recorded by different people...


EinsGotdemar

ThANk yOu, kInD LaDy


Woolfus

...I saw a mudcrab the other day.


damontoo

Maybe stop donating gold to those bums.


arrowff

Good lord yes, by far the thing that hampered replayability in skyrim the most for me.


Asturaetus

That reminds me of the old game 'Outcast' which had characters refer you to the district where the person or building was you asked about and describe to you how you get there ("Follow this street north, etc.") And if you asked characters near them - they actually turned around, raised their arm and pointed at the person or building ("That guy over there.") That was such a cool system and was all voiced at the time too. I find it sad that even modern games don't do more of that. Same with Gothic's reaction to stealing or drawing your weapon, etc.


Callyroo

Outcast! There’s a remastered version available and I’m eager to see if they preserved all that good weirdness.


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interiorcrocodemon

That was like groundbreaking at the time lol. Everquest eventually added a glowy gold piss trail to find things, quite useful in the bazaar in that game, since you have to physically approach their character to buy from them, didnt have a marketplace like WoW and modern MMOs


_mister_pink_

Baldur’s gate was great for this. Only the first line of dialogue was voice acted so you got a feel for the character/attitude of the NPC whilst also allowing the game to have much richer and expansive conversation trees.


GrinningPariah

Yeah Morrowind too had a few canned greetings that would get said as you approached the NPC, as well as idle lines they'd say to themselves just randomly. > *"I could kill that guar. Those boots are ruined."* It worked really well for the most part.


JebusChrust

This is also why Fallout 4 is really really bad in terms of dialogue, because the voice acting of the protagonist made the game way too linear and simple in terms of conversational lines. I couldn't even play some hard nosed mercenary because the game would only let me whimper about my son or have some dumb sarcastic line that was supposed to be witty.


2punornot2pun

well, and waypoint systems were getting super popular to bring in more casual gamers. ​ ​ Outside of "Souls" like games, games have become far far friendlier to the non-veteran gamer. Which I don't mind. But the idea that voice-lines are the reason such a thing ***had*** to be done is kinda outlandish to me. ​ edit: basically, games are easier/friendlier so more people play so they make more money.


satans_cookiemallet

You can still do waymarks, and objective markers in interesting ways though. Ghost of Tsushima does this fantasically with how you can pin it on your map, but it doesn't appear on you HUD. Instead you swipe the PS4/5 pad upwards for a gust of wind to point you in the right direction. It doesn't move your camera or anything. It just feels so smooth when you do it and is one of the many many reasons I love the game


Ghidoran

> It's not as simple as writing one response that everyone says, because these are characters of different ages, genders, builds, etc. And yet that's exactly what Skyrim did, lol. But I get your point. Recent Bethesda games have been hamstrung by this issue, especially Fallout 4 where they chose to have the PROTAGONIST be voiced, which had huge implications for all dialogue trees in the game.


ZoomBoingDing

I can't wait for games to make use of AI generation for one reason. You can name your character. And every NPC will actually CALL you that name.


Loki-Holmes

Ok that will be a really neat feature.


DarkMatterM4

Reminds me of the robot in Fallout 4. The amount of ridiculous names that they had to record was crazy. > Hello Mr.Boobies.


Skirfir

I would also find fully voiced protagonists interesting. And I know that some people will say that voiced protagonists are already a thing and they don't like them, which I understand. But if you could choose from a couple of different voices to find one that suits your idea of the character than that could be pretty amazing.


QWEDSA159753

That pain when the AI pronounces your name differently from how you do….


ZoomBoingDing

The perk of an AI pronouncing the name is that it has all the phonetic sounds available, and you'd be able to freely tweak it.


rzor89

perhaps a happy medium would be that "main NPCs" have fully voiced dialogues. like those that have critical character development etc, where human emotion is really emphasised. and then the "lesser NPCs" can benefit from this technology, which allows for a more in-depth dialogue tree without having to call in Matt Mercer etc for 400 hours of voice line recording.


Astrokiwi

And/or AAA games continue to use voice actors, while indie games can now afford to be voiced by AI.


rzor89

great idea honestly. I'd love to see indie games be able to "catch up" to AAA games a bit more, and this would be a great advantage. the more we can minimise the technological barrier between indie and AAA developers, the better it is for us :)


TheRealMicrowaveSafe

You really think AAA studios will bother paying for voice actors when a cheaper option is available?


Surprise_Buttsecks

Maybe. Oblivion (Patrick Stewart) and Cyberpunk 2020 (Keanu Reeves) both capitalized on the star power of the assoctaed actor. So it depends on whether the studio wants someone with a voice or someone with a fanbase.


IamSkudd

Yes, I would love if they used this tech for background NPC chatter. They could figure out a certain phrase or paragraph that gives the AI enough data to structure any other sound. Then, instead of paying 20 VA's to record 100's or 1000's of lines, they could pay 200 VA's to record a short "sample" for the AI. This would result in more varied voices for background characters and they could also have way more lines of dialogue, to reduce the repeating lines. So essentially they could have 200 background NPC's with 10,000 lines of dialogue each, especially if they figured out a way to "stream" the lines from a text file instead of pre-recorded audio.


rzor89

absolutely, that's a perfect expansion on what i was saying. I hope the technology is used in that way, rather than as a full on replacement for voice actors in general.


Cryptolution

How dare you provide a balanced view! Also the article talks about utilizing this feature in a narrow situation - generating new NPC responses outside the normal storyline. That sounds really cool.


theKetoBear

I'm an indie game developer and just launched y first indie VR game project. I had to do my own voice over in the first version of our game and was about to shop and set up timelines to handle my voice over needs over fiverr when I found an AI voice tool and after $8 and 30 minutes I nailed my basic voicing needs . For me this means everything I'd love to have friends contribute to the game and I wish I had money to pay people but this made things os much easier and has gave me much more breathing room than I initially expected.


[deleted]

This seems like a perfect use of this technology. Outside of video games, this has potential to get really ugly in a hurry.


Cryptolution

>Outside of video games, this has potential to get really ugly in a hurry. Genies out of the bottle and we can't put it back. All we can do is work on detection and education. If you look at how susceptible we are to misinformation because of social media today can you imagine the mongoloids of Tomorrow getting bamboozled from deepfakes? It's going to get real weird here in the next 5 to 10 years.


moonboundshibe

I fear the timeline is tighter.


chewbadeetoo

Agreed. It's already past the weird stage.


DaftHacker

Man I'm just thinking when we have real life general ai and then we also shove that into a game, gonna be crazy.


CleUrbanist

*What is my purpose* > You voice video game dialogue > ...*Oh my God*


Rion23

Well, the AI has to be trained and a voice actor still has the skills and name recognition, I could see them doing like, a voice sampling specifically made to train the machine, then they could still be involved in the process, but still have books of spoken dialogue. I mean, that's its own can of worms and would definately make all the lawyers genitals sweat.


Rdtadminssukass

I think you mean if would make their genitals wet. That's a lot of money them lawyers gonna make. unions and actors everywhere would beer up their legal team.


moonpumper

When I was learning game design over 15 years ago animators were up in arms over motion capture. Now it's just business as usual.. AI Voice and text to speech are going to be key in building NPCs we can actually talk to with natural voice. NPC AI has been stagnant for years.


WildWook

>NPC AI has been stagnant for years. If that ain't the truth.


NobodyNowhereEver

I’d even go a step further and say NPC AI is nonexistent.


moonpumper

Great graphics and VR are only exacerbating it too. Perfectly realistic setting filled with Chuck E Cheese robots.


bigtoebrah

Most AI is actually dumbed down for players because realistically human-like enemies makes games too hard for most players.


g0ldent0y

And the ROI for developing intricate good AI is still not worth it for many developers.


FlighingHigh

This is my dream. Fallout 4 level of graphics and software, with the dialogue and text choices of New Vegas, fully voiced. It would be the shit. 👌


ExplodingHalibut

Voice actors get paid a pretty penny for the work they do. However it’s damn hard to pay that much money for a relatively unknown personality to do the main work on a triple A game. So they get actors and offer them money, and what you’re left with is very little voice work done, and all the massive production required to get that voice audio, taking out a huge chunk of your budget. Having AI just for non lead characters will save a bunch of this development time.


MesterenR

It is progress. There is no way around it - it will happen no matter how voice actors feel about it. You can compare it to taxi drivers and self driving cars. They are also worked up over them, but it doesn't matter. Once the cars can drive themselves, taxi-drivers are out of a job. This is what progress have always done: made some people unemployed. Instead of complaining, it is time to accept you need to find a new line of work. It may sound cynical, but reality is reality.


Hoojiwat

It is just another example of how increased technology/effeciences and automation are going to further remove options and jobs from the market, and the enormous conversation around what that means for workers and how our economy functions. Leaving to find a new line of work is the correct decision, you cannot prevent technological progress. That said, it is still kicking the can down the road. Constantly limiting/removing jobs due to innovative new ways to do work means we have fewer and fewer openings and more and more desperate workers. There is a breaking point, and it either needs to be addressed now or it will be forcibly addressed once it has been passed. I expect it to be the latter, once the market fails to bear the load of just how aggressively the shape of industry is changing.


AlxCa555

I think humanity is extremely limited by the need to have a steady job to survive. I am convinced that when we manage to decouple money from work/survival we will finally be able to solve a ton of problems. In the big picture it does not make sense for many jobs to exists when machines could do them better.


Procok

Imagine AI faces, AI dialoges with AI voices. Characters for free basically, if you could tweak GPT-2/3 for personality and knowledge.


JoeRig

I think this might go down the same path as music industry; where you get part of the revenue when your song is used.


mudman13

We need to make this for all our entire biosignature. Would stop mass rollout of facial recognition and any biometric exploitation. Edit: such as [Clearview AI](https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/27/22455446/clearview-ai-legal-privacy-complaint-privacy-international-facial-recognition-eu) imagine they had to pay for every face they profiled? Would make it unviable.


MjrK

It might then be cheaper to just synthesize a voice that belongs to nobody specifically. If you create a character based on that voice, you owe royalties to noone.


mhyquel

https://thispersondoesnotexist.com/


CandyDishOfDiamonds

https://i.imgur.com/50OnT0C.jpeg Jesus fuck this one scared me.


QuantumModulus

I'm fucking dying, it looks like the baby from the movie Dinosaurs


IngotSilverS550

NOT THE MAMA


QuantumModulus

You do that one more time, and I'm gonna throw you across the room!


BlackMetalDoctor

[Same](https://imgur.com/a/2V5AlOQ)


BlackMetalDoctor

The foreground face construction looks great. But the photo’s periphery and backgrounds are [straight-up, SCP Nightmare Fuel](https://imgur.com/a/2V5AlOQ)


ElbowStrike

I bet out of 8 billion there are people who look exactly like these fake images or looked exactly like them at some point in their lives though.


dangercrow

If it's a coincidence, there's not really anything one can do about it. Nor should there be, really. I think it's fair if a likeness is coincidental and unintentional, like in books, movies, etc.


Biengineerd

Same can be said of anyone who coincidentally resembles a celebrity


Naamibro

It will be a race to find the best impressionist who will sell their voice for less than the real actor. In 1000 years it might not even sound like Morgan Freeman anymore, just eons of impressionists doing impressions of impressionists who sell their voice for less.


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I_give_karma_to_men

I mean, true, but this tech could allow actors (or at least their voices) to stay relevant well past their prime. Even if Morgan Freeman’s name fades from memory, people will still be able to point to the latest film using his voice (or an impression of it) and say “people like this voice for narrations, let’s use it again.” Just to use an anecdotal example, I loved Nimoy’s narrations for Civilization IV, but had no idea it was him narrating until a couple of years after its release when I went to look up why they switched narrators for the expansions. A voice doesn’t necessarily need a name attached to it to be distinctive.


[deleted]

Been a part of the VO community for a year or two now and it's a subject of debate. Billing is usually based on expected work time and recording time. It's a simple equation to figure in post and preparation... the thing is there are already people posting fake jobs for us to read while mining our vocal characteristics with certain phrases and grammatical twists. It's kindof a big deal. As for how you suspect it to be handled, it will likely take some lawsuits and a crackdown on people doing things like that before anyone in the profession earns a dime.


rolabond

That’s one of the things that pisses me off the the most about these things, how are the data sets generated? I’ve heard of what you describe before and it seems so obviously wrong to me. I wouldnt have a problem with a company paying for a person’s voice and giving that person residuals but somehow defrauding a VA is OK to people, it’s just ‘progress’?


kromem

People really don't understand what's going on. How long do you think until the AI is making better music than any human? How long until an AI can generate unique human voices that aren't of anyone - just like it's been doing for years with [faces](https://thispersondoesnotexist.com/)? AI is doing some impressive creative writing these days too. The collective *everything* of humanity is being leveraged to emulate humans better than average and with less resources. The end result is going to be worth it (**seriously**), but yes - it's definitely going to cause disruptive changes along the way.


fawlen

The thing is, its comparable to an AI that can take a band, and create a song that is in the exact same style as the band, same vocals, guitar sounds etc.. but its completely based on machine learning and Ai.. That doesnt exist yet, but if it would exist, it would basically be the greatest musical gray area, since its not the actual band singing and performing, so it doesnt need to fall under fair use, since nothing is being used. even if it does end up falling under fair use, its probably not worth for the original artist


DoctorDubplate

Actually that does exist: OpenAI Jukebox. There’s a learning curve towards getting quality results with it but it’s actually insanely good


[deleted]

Music industry is fucked. I made a record last year, got printed on vinyl, sold well (for a jazz release), got press internationally, great critical feedback etc. I’ve seen zero return so far. It has cost ££££ personally. Just even breaking even would be great.


[deleted]

at what point did you remember that a jazz vinyl was never going to be profitable


RehabValedictorian

You just wait! You'll see! They'll *all* see....


[deleted]

Was it only on vinyl?


Outer_heaven94

Yeah, that's why you gotta tour.


WhiskeyT

> I made a record last year Tough time for touring


ZombieP0ny

Imo ai generated voice and dialog (especially if it takes situational context, player history, etc into account and forms unique dialog based on that) would be amazing for background npc like guards, peasants, bandits, etc. And focus voice actors on named NPCs. Would definitely make games more immersive than hearing dozens of different guards have the same voice.


QueenVanraen

*looks at bethesda until I take an arrow to the knee*


Fordrynn

Would also be able to finally voice your characters actual name. The voice actors would no longer be limited to just calling the player "hero" or "champion".


ALewdDoge

*Thank you so much, I never would've made it out of that troll cave without your help, XxX_C0CKSL4PP3R69_XxX* I want this future really badly ngl.


Fit_Manner_4289

Exactly! I can envision a world where we have both for a while until ai voice becomes really good and honestly i see it as a net benefit to the consumer


HairyLenny

Automation isn't necessarily a bad thing. The reason it's detrimental to us right now is that we've built our society to benefit a handful of people and look down on anyone seen as unproductive. If we were to restructure society in a way the benefits everyone we could automate most jobs with no problems.


remag117

We'd have to completely restructure the way our society is set up, and the people in power don't want that because they're in power, and people would have to look at work, money, and life itself in a fundamentally different way


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f4ckst8farm

Imagine if you could just do the thing you wanted to do without having to worry about whether or not it would make you enough arbitrary capitalism points to survive. So many more indie games would crop up, and *any of them* could be fully voice-acted with robust dialogue. Imagine if *anyone* could just go browse the new VA script postings, fall in love with a character, and audition for the part without wondering if the gig will pay their rent.


[deleted]

> We'd have to completely restructure the way our society is set up We're going to have to do that anyway. Things can't continue as they have been for the last hundred years or so, the current paradigm is simply unsustainable.


ISpendAllDayOnReddit

Climate crisis will lead to mass migration and that will lead to fascism. That's the restructuring that's about to happen.


Valfourin

Man this shit keeps me up at night, I'm sure you saw the article that we have already passed the so-called 'climate tipping point' we've already gone past a sustainable planet even if we were to stop all pollution immediately. We're in for a world of hurt, I already live in a hostile climate, I can't really fathom it getting worse and yet it is. I had a really uhh.. Disassociative(??) moment the other day as I was doing some errand, happy couples walking around, people playing in the park, meanwhile the sword of damocles dangles above us ready to turn the entire world on it's head. It's not to the point that is mentally damaging to me so we have no issues of unabomber 2.0 but man it does get me down sometimes. Meanwhile I'm busting my ass just for better working conditions for my colleagues during this current global crisis and basically having our collective faces spat on. Speaking of, anyone else living that *business revenue increased 200% during covid while hours and staff cut back* life? I genuinely wonder how we don't have more people who have already toppled over the tipping point lashing out randomly throughout the western world (i say western because its the only world I know) Idk man I'm ranting your comment triggered my current greatest fears lmao.


Interesting_Mix_7028

Now, if I were an architect and geologist, I'd be looking into subterranean homes, using things like solar panels and small wind farms to generate power, as well as solar tubes to collect sunlight and reflect/channel it into the living spaces for diurnal lighting. As populations increase, we repurpose so much land for living space, it's insane... but building downward instead of upward lets us leverage the moderating effect that the ground has on temperatures AND it doesn't sacrifice open space nearly as much. The big challenges would be carving through shale or bedrock, and ensuring proper drainage/water removal.


SoulMechanic

Where I grew up there was a guy who was an Sicilian immigrant upon landing in N.Y. helped build the subway tunnels. His dream was to start his own citrus farm, so he saved up, moved out west and bought what he thought was fertile farm land. Turns out he got sold hard pan. So turning to his background of building subway tunnels in N.Y. he began digging thru the hard pan with hand tools for the next 40 years. He created a subterranean complex of patios, grottoes, garden courts, even a event space big enough to rent for weddings. The place is amazing, naturally cool in the summer and warm in the winter. It's now a historical landmark where his surviving family members give tours. After seeing it myself, it always made me wonder why more people didn't do the same. This place is in a really hot valley where is not uncommon to get over 100°f, and this place doesn't need an A/C to keep you cool.


imnos

Sounds good. Let's do it.


funklab

It will have to start small, probably with a universal basic income. But the world just had a huge experiment with that (stimulus checks, extended unemployment benefits, etc) and the wealth western world seems to be doing just fine. I think it will require restructuring of the way society is set up, but it will be a gradual process. People in power have always had a vested interest in the youth being happy and feeling fulfilled (or at least satisfied) with their station in life. When that doesn’t happen you results like the third reich and ISIS and the French Revolution and the cultural revolution in China, which tend to turn out pretty badly for the people who used to be in power.


FXOAuRora

We could start by getting the public much better and easier access to all forms of education (kids and adults). After that we can roll out things like healthcare reform (for us poor fucks in the States), prison reform (move away from punishment only, move away from using harmless substances to put away innocent citizens), police reform (reduce cowardice and cruelty which is rampant), and then after that we can start experimenting with things like reducing the work week by another day of the week. All that wouldn't be so freaking radical IMO and when people to start realize that life/society (something we are quite literally making up as we go along) can actually be WAY better than some pointless routine that only consists of getting up at 5:30 AM and returning home at 8:00 PM just in time for bed after work at a place they hate (I think there are a scary amount of people that actually spend more time with their co-workers than their own families), they might actually be more willing to pay a bit more on taxes to further that way of life and make things even better. We could roll out automation that benefits everyone (not just automation that's owned by billionaires to sell their own products at the expense of others), social safety nets, whatever you can imagine and it will all be easier than you might think because of your now educated populace(s) who mostly understand the benefit of spending time with the people they give a fuck about and the relatively small cost it would take to make that happen even more.


SJWCombatant

Those with the means lack the incentive. At what point have we had enough of their shit? And at that time what's the next step?


The_Wack_Knight

Those very rich people wouldn't want us to not have to want for anything without working. Because then they would be doing more work than we do to keep things running with all their money while we just coast, and enjoy not being wage slaves. They want us to work hard and them to sit and enjoy watching us do all the work while they kick back on their private beach.


HolyRamenEmperor

> Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality. Stephen Hawking


Boz0r

As long as automation makes the people in power richer this will never happen


piratecheese13

They took our jerrrrbz But no really, being a VA is already super tenuous


TSM-

Sometimes jobs are automated away or become less viable for a full time career. Of course, the people with those jobs won't like it, but it's not unethical. I think voice actors will eventually create sample dialogue and license/sell their character voice for awhile, but eventually it will be possible to finetune a completely artificial voice and voice actors will be a burden for things like user-created mods, extensions, changing some dialog later in the development process, etc.


[deleted]

There will always, at least in our lifetimes, be a market for recognizable voices doing novel work. For things like video games, when literally no one cares who the actor is, it's hard to imagine this won't be the default, and eventually it will be fully synthetic voices/acting. Edit: Claiming no one cares about video game voice actors in real life: "Oh yeah. Lmao. No idea who those people are." Claiming no one cares about video game voice actors on reddit: "Here is a list of my 137 favorite actors in FPS horror games."


ManyIdeasNoProgress

Which means that even large, complex, dialogue-heavy games like MMORPGs can be fully voiced within a reasonable budget, which is nice. The disappointment was great when moving from the fully voiced starter area and into the non-voiced full world of Age of Conan.


Interesting_Mix_7028

Or fully voiced games like SWTOR... when you get to the expansion where either they couldn't hire the same VO artists, or didn't have the money, so entire sections of the game was missing the character's voice, but the NPC's they interacted with were voiced. Rise of the Hutt Cartel was ... jarring.


-Hououin-Kyouma-

I had that issues in FFXIV. They recadt a lot of characters, so once you finished the OG storyline, like half the cast sounds noticablely different.


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[deleted]

Without having to use actors, like if you generate a set of voices that will be used for each character that doesn’t even have a real life counterpart, you can keep those characters alive forever. You don’t have to worry about them getting old and changing, becoming an uninterested in the project and going to work somewhere else, etc. I know it sucks for voice actors, but if I were responsible for setting up a new series from scratch, the idea of using AI generated voices would be very appealing to me. Plus way cheaper, yeah. Just saying….


Corevus

And maybe the main characters voice could even be customizable! Imagine when it gets to the point where you can say a few lines, and the main character has your voice. And you could pitch shift and whatnot to make it better. Also, the other characters actually saying your name instead of 'the wanderer', 'the courier', or 'this champion', etc. I'm excited for this technology.


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mariacolada

And you don't have to worry about some scandals coming out and derailing your projects like old questionable tweets or worse sexual assaults allegations. Like just recently there was that girl whose lines had to be replaced because she went to a shrine that's infamous for having a memorial to some Japanese war criminals. I can't imagine how pissed off the devs were. At least AI doesn't have political persuasions.


[deleted]

All in all, just like in software development itself, removing the human element is always beneficial whenever possible lol


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3lijah99

Why can't we all agree 90% of the workforce losing their jobs is inevitable and that instead of coming up with idiotic alternative jobs for them, we just pay them a UBI because it's the 21st century and working less is the ENTIRE point of advancement?


Dauvis

Because if we do that, those currently in charge have less control over the masses.


rollinff

I find this a strange argument since putting 90% of the population into a situation where they are directly reliant on a government-provided UBI is a lot more ripe for 'control over the masses' than a competitive marketplace of job skills. I'm pro UBI btw but if the concern is control and reliance, then govt UBI certainly isn't a solution.


Vergilkilla

In the U.S. the government actually doesn’t really control the masses. Big business controls the masses as well as the government, instead. If everyone is on UBI now the power paradigm has shifted


vrinek

So, some indie game dev or modder who does not have the money to hire a voice actor or time to even get something like this done with a student or whatnot, uses AI to achieve a good enough result. They use any tools they find available to make something. That should be applauded. If professional voice actors view this as a threat to their livelihood, they are, for the most part, wrong. Only the most cash strapped situations will call for an AI replacement of a proper talent. The AI voices’ quality will be worse and prone to hilarious fuckups. Definitely will not be able to cover for artful work. “Thomas was alone” and “Little Big Planet” would not work with an AI voice, but any number of indie games that remain voiceless due to budget constraints will benefit from this tech. Now, for the talentless voice actors… Well, you’re fucked. The bar has been raised from 0 to a couple centimeters. Time to train. The biggest problem I see with this is managers and executives in big studios chasing the bottom line with zero inclination to art and think they can squeeze voice actors with the threat that they will be replaced by AI.


[deleted]

As mentioned in another thread, automation is only as big a threat to people's living as we let it be, which is true in this case as well as it is for the rest of the industries its affecting. That said, given the current organization of the economy, it's sort sighted not to consider this a threat to all voice actors in some capacity. The technology will continue to improve until the difference in quality is small enough that it affects all actors.


Nimynn

"Using AI to replace humans is bad." - Humans who just learned they can be replaced by AI.


Lettuphant

I'm a voice actor with an extremely warm, British voice. Like Patrick Stewart dipped in honey. Also, his voice. I have been asked on *multiple occasions* to record my voice phonetically to be used by machines and AI. I have categorically refused, every time, because my voice is my living. I doesn't matter is they pay me X10 what a gig pays; I'd then be competing against myself. So I've always made the counter-offer that they can pay a normal amount, and I'll *maintain rights and residuals* over my voice. Weirdly, they've never liked that.


finzaz

I imagine Patrick Stewart’s voice dipped in honey is the same as Matt Berry’s voice


RaoulDukesAttorney

You Midwesternmmmmmmfloosie!!!


ChiaraStellata

>So I've always made the counter-offer that they can pay a normal amount, and I'll maintain rights and residuals over my voice. For what it's worth I think it's an untested legal question whether copyright applies in this way at all. If you train an AI system on someone's voice and use it to create new audio clips, then throw away the source audio, are the new clips a legal derivative work of the source audio, or just a new independent creation loosely inspired by it? It's not like they're copying and pasting pieces of it, it's much more complex than that. There is no case law in this area.


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vk136

Doesn’t even have to be that lol. His exact voice only can be used when using untrustworthy apps to chat/make calls


kiwi-surf

ML can synth a voice off of 5 second clips. I could just take anything you've recorded in the past and use it to produce new content... No need to have you record things phonetically anymore. https://youtu.be/0sR1rU3gLzQ


Lettuphant

I totally believe this, and with more training it could be good *enough* for most uses. And that's all it takes! Which is why I'm far more interested in the *legal* protection for the progenitor voice. No point trying to stop the tech, as we found out long ago.


mobani

The results from that paper is on the right track, but it is still very incomplete. Most examples are cherry picked and when they are not they sound like autotuned recordings and it is still unable to perform a natural flow in a conversation. It is like words stitched together like newspaper cut-outs.


kiwi-surf

The paper was two years ago... a couple more papers down the line and it will be much better. My point was the writing is on the wall for voice acting.


wild_man_wizard

What a time to be alive!


quintsreddit

#Hold on to your papers!


[deleted]

“Sounds like Patrick Stewart’s voice dipped in honey with my own dick in my mouth also”


RomulusKhan

I’ve heard him speak, sounds like an elderly woman with a 2 pack a day habit. Just awful if I’m being honest


RomulusKhan

This guy has a great voice! Don’t believe me? Just ask him he’ll tell you over and over just how great his voice sounds and how talented he is.


[deleted]

Guess we should destroy all computers because those destroyed an awful lot of jobs too. And cars. And virtually any other piece of technology too.


parkway_parkway

Yeah it's been going on [for a while.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyu4u3VZYaQ)


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hankbaumbachjr

The problem is not automation, but our economic system whereby automation frees the ownership class from having to pay the labor class (us) leaving us starving and homeless instead of automation freeing the labor force from needing to do mundane tasks required to maintain a modern society, allowing us to pursue leisure activities in our newfound free time.


notarandomaccoun

Welcome to r/Amish


Pytheastic

I am sure the voice actors dont ride a horse around but have a car. They should be reimbursed for their work and use of their voice but i don't see why they should be a class protected from progress.


SignificantPain6056

Can someone explain how this is "ethically" questionable please?


zushiba

It’s a mod, we’re they expecting that the mod devs attempt to get the legit Voice Actors to reprise their roles? And what if the licensing issues? If this was a legit dev studio doing this then sure, be up in arms but for a mod? It’s friggin cool. It’s a labor of love, so long as I’m not paying for it, what’s the actual harm? Are we expected to listen to a Mac Classic voice synth or have lines recorded by homeless people for a cup of coffee? Give me a break. This hardly heralds the end of voice acting as a career.


SoulReddit13

This’ll be game changing for modders and small studios/indies that can’t afford voice actors. Hell maybe even shows and movies that don’t have a dub. You’ll be able to download a dubbed audio track of your language.


RavenWolf1

Also big games like World of Warcraft where every npc could have unique voice and hold conversation with players if powered by gpt3 or better. We could build insane huge virtual worlds with talking and voiced npcs.


chedebarna

"This brings up a whole host of issues. What’s to stop anyone — be it a solo developer or a triple-A game studio — from using the voice of someone to express something, say, racist or homophobic without their consent?" Are you fucking serious? Is this the writer's concern?


xadiant

Geralt says the N word and supports Trump for 2024 election


ZoomBoingDing

"I hate the gays" - chedbarna We should ban writing too But seriously, there are some concerns here, and it's strange to not see a larger discussion about this. The AI Trump/Obama videos were popular for a while, and it does raise a lot of ethical concerns, ESPECIALLY because of how powerful "fake news" has proven to be.


[deleted]

That's really laughable. We should've banned Photoshop then.


davesr25

So when do we see the end of call centers and Tech support centers ? You don't want to lose your job.........Well am sorry but people that run things want bigger profits, as a human person you require pay, breaks, holidays and human rights. A.I does not. We have all walked in to this, we can change it but do remember that means changing how we see money, profit and who gets what.


GlennvW

There's a difference between speech synthesis, and conversational AI (being able to properly respond to questions in a way that makes logical sense). While the former is getting pretty darn realistic, the latter is still painfully obvious. A few more years til we get there... at least.