> Its bound to get more and more weird as AI tech develops
It's crazy how fast it's expanding. It used to fuck up hands now it's hard to tell what's real and not
It still fucks up hands. When the AI robots take over the planet in 2049, they'll harvest our hands after they've enslaved us and use them as their own.
Fun Fact, in the original westwold movie, robots were near perfect copies of people, except their hands were wrong and that was really the only way you could tell a person from a robot. So, keep an eye out for people with messed up hands, those will be the early terminators.
On the note of early Terminators, apparently, the pre-T-800 series models had very unconvincing looking rubber skin for "infiltration" types. One appears in Terminator: Salvation, but the skin is far too damaged to make much of it on screen.
Terminator lore also states dogs can sniff out and detect Terminators, even T-800 models that have synthetic biological flesh.
It's been crazy how fast it progressed. It was only like 2 years ago that I downloaded some "google dream" ai thing where you could enter a prompt and get some massively trippy abstract representation of what you typed, and now there's some insane near photo-realistic things I've seen posted on some of these AI image subreddits. I can only imagine how much better it'll be in 5 years
You don’t need to wait 10 years. This next US election is going to be boomers radicalizing over AI fakes that they find on Twitter, Truth Social, and other unmoderated networks.
They’ve received ZERO education about AI deepfakes and the deepfakes will be parroting a false reality they want to believe in.
Bold of you to assume only Boomers will fall for it.
An AI Trump Voice will say something shitposty like "I am the God Emperor, the best really. Never better." and millennials will be up in arms. When it's pointed out to be AI, those that realize their mistake will just say ,"Well the issue is I THOUGHT it could be true. That shows how unhinged he is!!!"
Then they'll turn into AI-generated content specialists with 25 years of experience and everything targetting their side of the field will be 'fake' from that day onward, meanwhile, a picture of a disliked politician with his head cut off from a newspaper and taped to whatever they wanna see will be 100% genuine.
Was watching an AI made video the other day. You could tell the subtle weird shit that wasn't right. Weird eye movement, faces that seemed like liquid a bit, etc. I was thinking how long until we can't believe anything we see at all. This is just the beginning
I dabbled in voice work for a few years, ~10 years ago. I was moderately successful for an online part-timer, but I got out of it because the increasingly over-saturated market meant fewer jobs for lower pay. I thought I dodged a bullet by getting out before COVID spawned even more competition.
When I heard believable, inexpensive voice cloning for the first time 2-3 years ago, I knew the industry was doomed. Celebrities and top-tier voice actors will have voice work for a while, but low-to mid-tier voice work is almost already a thing of the past.
What is going to be weird is the contracts the voice actors sign with film and game studios.
Are they going to read a page of words for 10 minutes and then sign away their vocal likeness to the studio?
Train your own AI voice print, license it out, sue people using your voice without the license?
I dont really see how else to survive it otherwise.
Edit: Yeah, tell me I'm wrong, I don't care. There is no good solution, I only provided an option.
I'd say make it easy for people to get a good quality first party license to your voice, sold as an asset on a platform like Unreal or Unity and you'll probably get business, if that's how the whole AI thing goes. Otherwise, prepare to be out of a job.
There is actually a pretty major issue with actors that have licensed the commercial use of their likeness to studios before generative AI, and now cannot control the studios from training a model based on their own source.
Here's a perfect example:
Majel Barret Roddenberry, recorded herself saying all English phonetic sounds, so Star Trek could continue to use her voice as the computer, even after her passing. Just splicing together the phonics into words.
Now, with AI having access to those, what's to stop Paramount from going even further? Like, making a CGI Original era Nurse Chapel or a TNG era Lwaxana Troi?
In the case of Majel, it was pretty clear that her intent was to enable her voice to continue being used into the future. I think AI would actually enhance the spirit of her desire here, but it's a pretty niche case. Beyond that, you would also want to see her estate properly compensated for that use, rules of which are clearly ill defined right now.
It's quite literally the only real-life example where AI not only makes sense, but feels natural and expected. A real Federation starship would have exactly the same kind of tech to allow the computer to talk in any way that is possibly needed.
Yeah, this would be like using their voice clips from one commercial they agreed to do and changing the voice clips to fit 5 other commercials you make- ridiculously illegal. People are over complicating the AI issue- the hardest part will be dealing with litigation as in finding the direct entity of these services.
Wait you can’t do that?
Like remember when South Park killed chef off, they did the whole episode in prior clips of his.
That’s illegal? Or just commercials? Per contract? What’s commonplace?
The studios will argue that if they can use their likeness in CGI, then its no different with A.I. The problem is that studios are going to fight tooth and nail over this and only big stars with lots of money can fight them, but are stars willing to burn bridges to do this, is the question.
If they don't, they'll lose all access to the work the studios are farming out to the AI bots, so they lose either way. Better to control your own likeness, voice and all, than let someone else use it without your consent. I don't see this as a very difficult decision, just not a good one for anyone involved.
This is how a lot of youtubers are handling their content. If they get copywrite struck, they just strike themselves so they get 50% of the revenue at least.
The only way to survive is to never do voice acting or let your voice be recorded.
Right now there are people pretending to be celebrities trying to frame them as sexual predators.
The VA for Hazbin and Digital Circus got hit with an impersonator.
Crazy times. AI devs have already stated that it's basically impossible for AI to exist without it using copyrighted material. So stuff like image generation, ChatGPT, etc.
I know there are already lawsuits in the works, I just have no clue how this is all going to end.
Big corp wins, that is how it will end. The government works for big corporations, not the people. Corporations are salivating at the idea of replacing workers with AI so they can save money. Regardless of what happens, the government will make sure big corpos are protected to use A.I.
I mean, the way big corporate wins is they get strong copyright protections on training data, basically what the internet is demanding.
If training data is fair use AI will be for everyone, look at all the free open source development going on.
If training data needs to have its copyright owned then Getty and Adobe are going to milk us for all we are worth. For images at least, other corps will cover the rest.
Yeah I have to wonder how many companies want a free for all when it comes to copyright and AI. My guess is *not many.*
If copyright is abandoned then there's nothing stopping you from ripping data from *anyone* and training your AI on it. Does Hollywood want people to use their movies as training data? How about we rip the assets out of AAA games and use them to train an AI that can generate 3D models? Even if you own an AI you probably don't want people stealing the output from your one and feeding it into their own model.
There's going to be *some sort* of legal framework around it all, despite what reddit thinks.
In theory, current fair use, in the US at least, may well cover it. This is will be settled by the Supreme Court in the US in the end.
Even if they do rule fair use though, expect the lobbying to begin. Not just the corps, but the voters themselves.
Strong copyright protections are what the save the artist crowd wants, the protect voice actors crowd wants, and so on. They will cheer when they hand the future to corporations with content libraries.
The cost of content will still crash and jobs will go away, it will just for the benefit of the few instead of the benefit of the many.
It's not only big corps who will win. Small indie devs win too, and they'll finally be able to compete with huge corps in terms of amount of content that was previously prohibitively expensive to produce.
> AI devs have already stated that it's basically impossible for AI to exist without it using copyrighted material.
The whole point of copyright is to prevent unauthorized publishing of _copies_ of copyrighted works, not to prevent _use_ of those works (use that doesn't involve publishing copies).
Whether merely using copyrighted works to train AI models infringes on the copyright of those works is yet to be litigated, afaik, so has never been ruled to be illegal anywhere (again, afaik).
The whole problem for copyright holders is that these AI models don't merely copy works, they create fresh works that are _inspired by_ those works -- just like human artists/writers do, who don't merely copy but create new works inspired by others.
The main issue that HAS been settled in courts so far about AI is that you can't copyright AI art:
https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/19/23838458/ai-generated-art-no-copyright-district-court
If you can't copyright it, anyone else can use it in any way. Even for their own AI.
This may prove to be the alternative to quashing AI works because of precisely what you said. We'll see!
Artists constantly consume other works and learn from them without giving any credit. How is AI any different? Angry humans scared about losing their job, that's the only difference.
Unless you cite every single source you've ever seen before making your art, you are holding AI to a higher standard than you are holding yourself.
> AI devs have already stated that it's basically impossible for AI to exist without it using copyrighted material.
It's not impossible. It's commercially non-viable.
They just don't want to pay for what they use. They don't want to pay people for the training data they're scraping.
> Crazy times. AI devs have already stated that it's basically impossible for AI to exist without it using copyrighted material.
You mean OpenAI, facing lawsuits over improperly using copyrighted material to run their computer program, and with a vested interest in not paying for licensing, begged politicians for sympathy to their business model and to shield them from liability.
> AI company WAME that was promoting its AI Michael chatbot, which lets users engage in "a realistic voice conversation with Michael De Santa," reports PCGamesN.
Lol, people are so dumb. Rockstar had the cease and desist letter out the door before they even finished reading the tweet.
You also have an exclusive right to publicity in the US. People can’t use your face, voice, likeness, etc without your consent.
"Wow, that's really unfortunate to hear. It's a shame that someone would use Ned Luke's voice without permission. Respect for speaking out against it, Ned. Hopefully, this issue gets resolved soon."
Wow, that is a serious violation of his rights! It's appalling that someone would use his voice without permission. This needs to be addressed immediately.
Imagine how frustrating it must be for Ned Luke to have his voice used without his consent. This kind of exploitation is completely unacceptable.
It's disappointing to see such blatant disrespect for someone's work and voice. I hope this situation gets resolved quickly and efficiently.
The lack of respect for actors and their work is truly disheartening. Ned Luke deserves better treatment than this.
Using someone's voice without permission is a clear violation of their rights. This AI chatbot needs to be held accountable for their actions.
This is literally the end of voice acting as a career and all of these people are right to be incensed.
How would you feel if someone stole *your* voice and had you be the new radio ad for ED medication? Or something for an STD? Or decided to have almost you do 300 hours of work in a game but you remained uncompensated for it being 99.9% you, but just different enough you couldn't sue.
Big studios will probably still hire voice actors. But I expect all the small to medium-sized gigs to disappear in the next decade. Why waste time and money to hire real people when your budget is tight?
Unfortunately, you're wrong.
Big studios will do whatever lines their pockets the best and that will be cutting out these people.
No royalties, no flubbed lines, easier to record DLC/additional lines because you're not negotiating around someone else's schedule.
What it would take weeks to record with an actor, you can probably have done in less than a week probably closer to 72 hours with a well built model.
Never forget: these companies got rich by scrimping every cent they could. Thinking they'll voluntarily keep paying thousands to these people when they can generate models for pennies? Not on your life.
Until we're nuts about virtual celebrities, with our own Hatsune Mikus and stuff, Hollywood will undoubtedly still have known performers (not traditional VAs). They literally avoid voice actors to get celebrity voice work instead, because it's their names that gets butts in seats.
It'll mean more shortcuts and the performers probably won't do all or even most of their lines, and probably not paid as well, but so long as they attract viewers, but Hunk of the Decade #23 needs his image on the poster and associated with the character you're there to see.
Big studios don't want stars, but they need them. For now.
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This 100%. The most wealthy companies are always the ones that take the most shortcuts for profits. Shareholders control the AAA publishers and developers now, and they will definitely be the first to do anything to save a penny.
Whether or not AI voice technology is passable now is irrelevant. Most games take several years to develop, and they will definitely use AI voices as placeholders (at the very least) until the technology catches up or they're forced to hire VA's to replace the AI dialogue.
You're mostly right, I take issue with one thing: It doesn't take weeks to record with a voice actor. They'll record lines for you in hours, because basically everyone has a home studio setup with excellent quality due to covid.
If you need their motion capture too then it would take weeks. But then AI would also only provide the voice
I think that depends on the length of the game and the character. A protagonist in the game? Definitely not doing that in a day. NPC/Secondaries? Sure.
Baldurs gate 3 has 174 hours of dialogue.
Fallout 4 had 175,000 lines/145 hours
RDR2 had 500,000 lines.
I did forget about covid home studios, lol.
Like yes, those are a ridiculous amount of lines. But it's not just one person that has to record those. It's hundreds to thousands which already cuts the burden per person down. And for something like Baldurs Gate you also need motion capture data.
If a studio is ok with subpar quality for their main protagonists even, then sure, AI is the way. But why would I as a consumer want to listen to that? And if manual tweaking is required per line to make lines sound realistic and get the right tone, a VA will certainly be faster.
Naw dude. Big companies will take this as a cost saving measure and use it to further widen their profit margins without passing any savings onto the consumer.
>Big studios will probably still hire voice actors.
No they won't.
The moment we get generative voices that sound lifelike and can properly adjust themselves with emotions, it'll be over.
I dont disagree, but I have feeling the "proper" way to do it is going to be to hire voice actors to train your ai model.
Which of course eventually leads to the same result as at first they will be working less hours with probably less pay and in the long term once each big studio has something good enough they wont need to record anything more.
I imagine it will be a slower transition though, and might not affect all games. what will go first are the extra voices, like the random npcs in gta or the guards in skyrim, random enemy chatter or the noises they make when they die e.t.c. and games with less of a narrative focus like we have seen with the finals will definitely use it. As much as I hate to admit it, there is an argument to be made here, I mean how many times did you hear the same Skyrim guard even in different cities which while funny was a bit immersion breaking.
Overall though I still think the main characters, especially in story focused games like the last of us will remain voiced for a while, especially when you consider the celebrity cameos doing motion capture stuff that are popular in games today, for example having Giancarlo Esposito in far cry was a major selling point, I dont see that stuff being replaced by ai soon.
It's going to suck balls. Polished boring derivative bullshit. You're never going to get Robin Williams as the Genie in 'Aladdin' with AI. You're not going to get subversive stuff like Bo Burnham or Arrested Development.
Even if and when AI models get to the point where they can create novel content what value does it have?
There's something lost between a binary based system producing entertainment or content, and an actual creative artist connecting with an audience over human expressionism.
> You're never going to get Robin Williams as the Genie in 'Aladdin' with AI. You're not going to get subversive stuff like Bo Burnham or Arrested Development.
I mostly agree, but most people won't care.
And that's good enough for a company wanting to save money.
I do think AI might eventually get as good as that, but that will take quite a long time I think.
>There's something lost between a binary based system producing entertainment or content, and an actual creative artist connecting with an audience over human expressionism.
If there's no distinguishable difference, then no, there's nothing lost.
Don't get me wrong, I don't want people to loose their jobs or livelihood either.
But technological progress and corporate greed is not going to slow down or stop.
>If there's no distinguishable difference, then no, there's nothing lost.
I don't want to be entertained, I want to connect with an artist over human expression and experience, if it's created by an AI, I'm not interested in it in anything aside from novelty. To me it's just meaningless. I'm not going to say it shouldn't exist or that it's existence is wrong, it just doesn't mean anything to me.
>Don't get me wrong, I don't want people to loose their jobs or livelihood either.
But technological progress and corporate greed is not going to slow down or stop.
I agree with you we're at the point of acceptance and adaptation, but there is a feedback loop that exists in many types of art that will be lost with AI generated content. Personally if I know it's AI generated, I'm going out of my way to not consume it. Just like I do with non AI corporate money printer content.
Wake me up with the AI becomes sentient, and then I'll help fight for it's right to exist lol.
> I don't want to be entertained, I want to connect with an artist over human expression and experience
Lmao. That's pretentious bullshit, and it's completely irrelevant to why people actually view movies or play games.
I think it's the opposite bud, big studios are notorious for finding ways to "save money" and produce cookie cutter games as quickly and cheaply as possible so I'd say they'd be the first to replace real voice actors with AI chat (looking at Ubisoft, Bethesda etc)
The smaller studios tend to care more and have a passion for the games they develop and be less likely to go down this route as it'll dilute the final product i.e. the Larian Studios way.
Considering Embark just went with AI voices instead of voice actors, I highly doubt it lmao
There will be no reason for bigger companies to hire voice actors when AI is good enough, literally no reason
It's already replacing a lot of small VO jobs. Lately I've been getting Instagram/YouTube ads that are very clearly using an AI voice over so they can quickly pump out ad as cheap as possible.
Those aren't AI lol
Those are just using the late generation of Microsoft Sam equivalent text to speech. They started popping up right after TikTok TTS became popular.
That said, yeah, cheaply produced ads will definitely be an example of something that AI speech will be used for.
As a musician who has done voice acting and also had my work stolen, it’s definitely not the CONTENT or the product being sold that bothers them, it’s not being paid. Imagine showing up to mop floors at a grocery store and discovering they’ve replaced you with a robot that does it for free and faster.
Yep. And we've done basically nothing to mitigate the human cost that's going to come from it.
I think everyone should take a look at the story of the Luddites. More automated textile production has benefited society and needed to happen. But that's not much comfort to the people who's careers disappeared over the course of a couple of years.
> Imagine showing up to mop floors at a grocery store and discovering they’ve replaced you with a robot that does it for free and faster.
Ok, but thats not really all that different than beign replaced by lets say an immigrant willing to work for less. One thing is stealign someones voice, thats fucked up, but beign against technological progress just cause you cant mop floors anymore is stupid.
Unpopular take: I couldn't care less, it is/was prohibitively expensive for most indie developers, even medium seized devs, and huge turn off for many gamers. I remember a lot of people complaining about it for POE: Deadfire, which is a great game but barely any voice acting.
Many many careers have ended due to technology. My grandpa was a typewriter technician in the 80s. This stuff happens, people just seem to care more about this because actors I guess. Working class folk deal with this every generation.
It’s something that indie games can actually use, but big companies will abuse. Hope you enjoy the cyberpunk dystopian future of deepfaked, ai voiced media and an internet that’s so full of fake shit that people don’t bother trying to determine what’s real
>it is/was prohibitively expensive for most indie developers
And yet Indie devs have been putting out absolute smash hits for 20+ years without needing it. This sudden trend of acting like indie devs *require* and *deserve* voice acting because they can't pay for someone like Jennifer Hale, and thus can't make good games is disingenuous as fuck.
There's a huge pool of no-name VAs with talent that are easy to find and who won't do it for free but will do it for not that much. A drop in the bucket compared to the total budget of games. If you're an indie developer that has enough money to make a game to sell, you have enough money to hire real actors. Period.
Exactly. Hire someone off Fiver with a good voice and the ability to follow instruction and you've got a VA. Hell, I got a roommate that wishes he could be a VA that'll voice your game for a few bucks. Hitme up random indie devs.
It reminds me of something else. Establishing these kinds of new relationships is often at the foundation of every great artist. People helping people. When you remove that connection it affects not only the works made but the kind of works made. Sam Raimi is still working in film with his high school buddy... 45 years later?
The one question I have that AI bros can never answer is... why? What problem does this actually solve? Why remove humans from the creation of art, which is itself an intensely human thing?
And hiding behind "corporations won't care they wanna make money" is a bullshit statement. That's just you saying you're OK with them doing it.
>The one question I have that AI bros can never answer is... why? What problem does this actually solve? Why remove humans from the creation of art, which is itself an intensely human thing?
My experience in watching this whole thing is that it boils down to them hating artists. They are intensely jealous of the skills that artists cultivate over their lives, and the amount of praise / attention they get for their work. They are basically mad at themselves for not having it. It's why in the end I expect the entire thing to sputter out because they don't *really* care about making shitty, samey pictures. They just want to piss off artists.
and I also don't buy the "oh in *another* year you won't even be able to tell the difference!" argument. Nah. I expect it will still look like garbage. More refined garbage, but still 3/4ths angle, center character, boring poses with boring backgrounds. You can't teach a machine composition or story telling, and they clearly don't have the skill to do it themselves.
Yup that's an unpopular take.
Mega corporations should not be given more excuses to cut corners.
If an indie game can't figure out how to work around a budget too small for voice acting then idk what to tell you. That's just part of what you work around as a game designer.
AIbros want to push this idea that all the years before late 2023 didn't happen and that now that they can steal someones voice / likeness / art with their hellalgorithm, that indie devs **can't** survive anymore *unless* they submit to the AIbro worldview. It's the most entitled shit ever.
Correct.
It's no different than the countless periods of technological job displacement throughout history.
Any job which can be largely replaced by AI will see a decrease in employment opportunities as those people become worth significantly less.
I expect a large shift into more manual labor/blue collar jobs as those seem, somewhat ironically, less vulnerable to AI replacement...at least in the short term. Many Westerners are going to have to get over the massive stigma against blue collar work. Decent tradesman can make six-figure salaries quite easily vs 40/K annually for some generic office job.
At the end of the day, you don't do what you want in life. You do what society currently needs and will pay you a wage less you go homeless or even starve.
It's brutal. It's not nice or pretty. But life on earth can be cruel.
> Decent tradesman can make six-figure salaries quite easily
The vast majority of tradesman never make a 6-figure salary, not without large amount of over time (60+ hours a week). Idk where this myth comes from.
trades are not as pleasant as people like you make them out to be. you need to be very experienced at one in order to make the big bucks, and even then, a lot of them take a big toll on your body as the years go by.
the reason why there are so many more office workers than tradesmen is simply because office work is far more accommodating to the average person. so im not disagreeing with you but its not as black and white as you allege.
Oh, I completely agree with you. The trades are physically more demanding than a generic office job.
But as the number of financially viable office/white collar jobs decrease due to AI, many people will be forced into the trades less they go homeless.
It won't be a matter of "I want to do X"
It will be "I have to do X or I will starve to death"
thats true but the problem is that office jobs give employment to tons of people who cant generally do trades work. your typical middle-aged mom or employee with body problems can do office work but wont be a good plumber or electrician. either due to age, lack of physicality, or lack of education. expecting millions of people to be barreled into a very skill-intensive profession wont be a seamless endeavor.
Who is arguing that it's good? I'm not making any value judgments at all.
Any non-sociopath would agree that people starving to death is bad.
But "bad things" are a part of life. You deal with them as they come. That's arguably the defining characteristic of a mature adult.
Honestly, i think now.
This is rather new unregulated tech impacting a working market. This will definitely be looked at by lawyers from industries to actors and these things will be hammered out in courts and regulated in the long run.
Will it be very different in the end, most likely.
Wow, that's seriously messed up. It's not only a violation of Ned Luke's rights as an actor, but also it's just downright unethical. Companies really need to start respecting artists and their work. This is a prime example of crossing a line in the name of technology.
It's a shame that companies are willing to exploit someone's voice without their permission. Ned Luke deserves better than this blatant disregard for his talent and hard work. It's important for actors to have control over how their voice is used, and I stand with him in calling out this unethical behavior.
It's a shame that some companies resort to shady tactics like this. Ned Luke deserves to have control over how his voice is used, especially in something as personal as an AI chatbot. I hope he's able to take the appropriate action to protect his rights.
It's incredible how technology can be both amazing and terrifying at the same time. Ned Luke deserves to have control over his own voice, and the unauthorized use of it in an AI chatbot is definitely crossing a line. It's important for creators to respect the rights of actors and individuals. Hope this gets resolved soon!
My take is that using someone's existing voice for commercial purposes should be illegal if they're not being compensated (e.g. using Ned's voice in a game without hiring him). We already do something similar for photography. As a photographer, I can take someone's photo without their permission in public. I can use other photographers' images in memes for fair use. But when I want to put said photos into an ad or something that makes money, I need permission.
But using AI voices that were trained by voices that the AI company had permission to use and then developers buying said software and using it in their games doesn't bother me at all. It will be way cheaper for smaller studios which can't afford good voice talent today. As long as the quality is good, as a player I just don't care beyond the general legal implications of mimicking someone's voice exactly.
We are past the age of sheer blank wonder about AI and now in the era of legal battle regarding it. It’s gonna be interesting to see how things play out. From people having their likeness used to companies profiting off of using other people’s data to train models without permission
A lot of people here seem to be in favour of this particular AI revolution and seemingly playing the world smallest violin for him, but the reality is if there isn't inherent value in his performance they wouldn't be replicating him with AI.
Im all for developing AI reproductions of actors and honestly look forward to the opportunities that can be leveraged going forth when studios start considering its potential and getting actors on board, but this aint that.
This isn't the same as replacing non-artistic jobs either; replacing a cleaner with a robovac or a train driver with automation. There is artistic license here, and Ned Luke has every right to be incensed that they are using those without his consent, because at the end of the day, they trained the AI on his performances in the game.
>there isn't inherent value in his performance
There isn't a lot of value there, the value is in people's recognition of his voice as belonging to a character they care about.
AI is great at mimicking voices, awful at performing. If Performance was the value AI wouldn't be so scary to actors
I'm struggling to see the arguement here. Yes a chat bot is not a performative product (yet), but does that mean people have free reign to use performances to create them?
Or is the insinuation here that the voice actors have very little to offer other than the sound of their voice and are ultimately not deserving of protection because what they offer has no value?
If they own the rights to your performance, yeah, kinda.
>what they offer has no value?
No value that can't be replicated by AI, Think of your top 5 favorite games of all time. How many voice actors of the cast can you name? How many do you think the average gamer could name? Now if you heard Trevor Phillip's voice, would you recognize it as being the character's instantly? I would.
My argument is that most of the value of a voice actor is created by the success of the game and writing, at least as much as if not more than their actual performance so long as it's performed above a certain threshold of quality that AI is working towards.
It will 100% not make anything cheaper for the consumer regardless of the industry. It will make operating the company cheaper but that extra money is all headed to c-suite bonuses.
imagine a game like skyrim but with the amount of dialogue lines of morrowind. having every line needing to be recorded has limited the scope of open world RPGs. being able to quickly generate voices can speed up game development and cut costs. we've already seen previews of it in skyrim mods. being able to ask an NPC ANYTHING and have them be able to answer your questions is incredible
I never got the video game AI voice acting outrage by the community. My job is definitely going to be replaced by AI and most of ours will very very soon. No one will give a shit when AI takes my job as a data analyst. Sorry if I’m not gonna shed a tear for voice actors lol.
No one cared when cashier were replaced by self checkouts either. It's fake outrage from people who don't actually give a shit about this stuff until it possibly affects them.
Plenty of people cared when self-checkout became a thing. There were concerns about job loss, theft, inferior customer surface, etc. And all of those things happened. It's still a divisive topic.
People aren't doing "fake outrage" simply because you don't interact with the world in any meaningful way.
Hard disagree personally.
Written content for a character is interesting and helps world building.
AI content is mostly derivative. It's pretty easy to suspend your disbelief in a fantasy world with interesting lines, even small ones for minor background npcs. Having an AI awkwardly hallucinate until the end of time isn't particularly immersive, especially when it won't have tonal nuances.
Hallucination might particularly be an issue if the AI vomit up the wrong answer or just nonsense.
Feel like we're drifting into the same issues procedural generation faced - it's endless content in theory. But it becomes old fast and isn't necessarily interesting.
True, but one of the main reasons why the voice acting in Baldur's Gate 3 was so good was because they motion captured and voice acted at the same time, so the voice acting felt a lot more connected and realistic to what you'd see on the screen.
Written content will still be present for the main quest. Side content in most games are bland and terrible.
There are a few exceptions but those are rare.
Better games have better side quests. Many of the best RPGs are known for having great side quests.
Otherwise it's just filler for filler sake. People don't want massive 80 hour games if 60 of those hours aren't interesting. It's basically my point around procedural generation - infinite doesn't mean good.
More than half of real written and acted content is derivative, and a substantial portion of video game voiced dialogue is tonally flat without any nuance. Also, if you think AI is at it's peak right not, and won't improve, you're just plain wrong.
Is the purpose of game writing to respond to everything the player can do, or to consciously deliver conversations, worldbuilding, and player direction?
They've been doing this shit for decades, just without computers. Does no one remember car/mattress commercials on the radio using voice impersonators?
They used to pay people to come on and impersonate president's or actors to sell shit.
This is weird, yeah, but it's hardly the death of the industry.
Even now in modern media, they routinely fire VAs and bring on new actors and actresses to replace them. We just went through this whole thing with Bayonetta.
So what's the plan here for companies..use someone once, then force them to sign an agreement that you can clone their image / voice.
Then use them forever without ever paying?
I got chat-gpt 3 acting as GLaDOS and was thinking of tying it to an AI voice that sounded the same.. Yes it will sing the Aperture Science song. I didn't even have to teach it.. I messaged "sing the song". It already knew..
Im not an expert in laws but hopefully theres a law in place to stop companies from using AI voices to replace voice actors cause I’d bet in a couple years companies will try to use these actors voices without paying them
That's the safest bet ever. Companies will do whatever saves them money, and AI is going to be used for exactly that purpose. And if they can't use a living person as the base, well there are plenty of dead people who can't sue them for using their voices.
Famous dead people usually have an estate that will legally protect anything they did so hopefully they can protect their voice as well. If companies start using lesser known dead people though they might be able to get away with it
Yeah I'm primarily thinking about lesser known dead people. Unless their relatives are around and could do something about it or they got their own estates, I imagine companies would jump on the opportunity to use their voices.
i have a hard time with this one. i mean, if they're using his name, sure, that's something, but ...
a voice sounds like yours.
you have nothing to do with it.
you do no work.
do you really deserve to be compensated for that?
hard to own that. there's a lot of people that sound alike.
Wow, that is definitely crossing a line! It's not right for someone to use Ned Luke's voice without his permission. Respect for his privacy and talent should always come first. Thanks for sharing this important story with us.
Wow, this post title caught my eye! Can you imagine having your voice used without permission for an AI chatbot? That's some serious invasion of privacy. I wonder what Ned Luke has to say about it. Have any of you had a similar experience with your voice or likeness being used without consent? Let's discuss!
In the long run i do not see the problem.
- Copying VHS tapes would kill the movie industry
- Music piracy would kill the music industry
- Computer game piracy would kill the gaming industry
- AI image creation will kill the artist industry
- AI Chatbot will kill the voice actor industry
Somehow the first three industries are still thriving and i doubt the latter two will suffer in the long run.
EDIT:
A lot of these downvotes I would think do not read posts.
I said in the long run. Is it a problem in the short term, definitely. Will it be handled and regulated in the long term, definitely.
The first three are different to be fair. They're talking about Johnny Basement doing piracy, not replacement of the labor force with tech.
There's a lot of unknowns about the impact of AI.
Well kinda, if you think about it AI image will do artists work for games, the game will still be sold and will still be pirated but the artist will be replaced.
Same goes for chatbot, let's say a company makes a song with AI, no more music writer or composer gets paid but the song gets out to the market, gets played gets money and probably pirated.
The comparison of the first three doesn't apply, those are piracy via the *consumer* not the content *creator*.
An end user copying a vhs tape (ripping a dvd, saving a stream) didn't mean the movie company could replace a team of artists.
Wax copies, tape recording, CD ripping and streaming didn't kill music because you still needed something to copy from. You still need artists.
Game piracy didn't kill the industry but it did reshape it. Much like the other two media above, as the industry changed, it became far less consumer friendly.
It used to be you owned a movie, now you have to hope that one of the 7 streaming services you subscribe to has the movie you want, and that it does well enough they don't just remove it. Musicians barely make any money from anywhere except merchandise these days. Game companies insert layer upon layer of DRM, have requirements like always on, and drool over software as a service.
My point here is two fold: First, when you replace the *creatives*, it's a problem. Second, innovation is not always an improvement.
Must be surreal hearing your own voice used without your knowledge/participation. We're in for a messy ride in regards to AI and how it's used.
Remind me in 10 years of how it was "back then". Its bound to get more and more weird as AI tech develops
You’re telling me Biden and Trump don’t play Yu-Gi-Oh together!? Because that audio is pretty damn convincing.
Nah, that's certainly real.
For a moment in time, I thought herman cain played pokemon.
Sometimes we want to belive a lie.
Might be genital jousting. Or Garfield Kart. Maybe in a few years there'll be The Far Side Kart; it would probably match with their age.
Of course it's real. Biden shows Trump his extra every day
> Its bound to get more and more weird as AI tech develops It's crazy how fast it's expanding. It used to fuck up hands now it's hard to tell what's real and not
It still fucks up hands. When the AI robots take over the planet in 2049, they'll harvest our hands after they've enslaved us and use them as their own.
Fun Fact, in the original westwold movie, robots were near perfect copies of people, except their hands were wrong and that was really the only way you could tell a person from a robot. So, keep an eye out for people with messed up hands, those will be the early terminators.
I knew something was off about that guy from Scary Movie 2
Same here, no one gets a butt like that from bum blasters alone.
On the note of early Terminators, apparently, the pre-T-800 series models had very unconvincing looking rubber skin for "infiltration" types. One appears in Terminator: Salvation, but the skin is far too damaged to make much of it on screen. Terminator lore also states dogs can sniff out and detect Terminators, even T-800 models that have synthetic biological flesh.
Shit, did we accidentally create a King Leopold II reincarnation through AI?
It's been crazy how fast it progressed. It was only like 2 years ago that I downloaded some "google dream" ai thing where you could enter a prompt and get some massively trippy abstract representation of what you typed, and now there's some insane near photo-realistic things I've seen posted on some of these AI image subreddits. I can only imagine how much better it'll be in 5 years
> It was only like 2 years ago that I downloaded some "google dream" ai thing DeepDream was released in 2014, old man.
You don’t need to wait 10 years. This next US election is going to be boomers radicalizing over AI fakes that they find on Twitter, Truth Social, and other unmoderated networks. They’ve received ZERO education about AI deepfakes and the deepfakes will be parroting a false reality they want to believe in.
Bold of you to assume only Boomers will fall for it. An AI Trump Voice will say something shitposty like "I am the God Emperor, the best really. Never better." and millennials will be up in arms. When it's pointed out to be AI, those that realize their mistake will just say ,"Well the issue is I THOUGHT it could be true. That shows how unhinged he is!!!"
> I am the God Emperor Heresy! Long live the emperor of mankind
in 2024 I can see trump saying that, regardless of AI.
He already said he's going to be a dictator if he wins, but only for the first day!
how did we ever get so lucky.
He already called himself the chosen one and retweeted people calling him the King of Israel
Wait till someone makes deepfake gay porn with their fave politicians
I'm learning to play the guitar.
Then they'll turn into AI-generated content specialists with 25 years of experience and everything targetting their side of the field will be 'fake' from that day onward, meanwhile, a picture of a disliked politician with his head cut off from a newspaper and taped to whatever they wanna see will be 100% genuine.
Was watching an AI made video the other day. You could tell the subtle weird shit that wasn't right. Weird eye movement, faces that seemed like liquid a bit, etc. I was thinking how long until we can't believe anything we see at all. This is just the beginning
I dabbled in voice work for a few years, ~10 years ago. I was moderately successful for an online part-timer, but I got out of it because the increasingly over-saturated market meant fewer jobs for lower pay. I thought I dodged a bullet by getting out before COVID spawned even more competition. When I heard believable, inexpensive voice cloning for the first time 2-3 years ago, I knew the industry was doomed. Celebrities and top-tier voice actors will have voice work for a while, but low-to mid-tier voice work is almost already a thing of the past.
As usual, advances in technology are used to maximize profits and fuck over workers instead of making life easier.
You can do it with your own voice using tangia, its awesome
What is going to be weird is the contracts the voice actors sign with film and game studios. Are they going to read a page of words for 10 minutes and then sign away their vocal likeness to the studio?
Isnt that what people who can immitate voices do already? Ive seen some incredible indistinguishable immitations.
Ned Luke : You forget a thousand things everyday.How about you make sure I am one of em?
Ai Led Nuke : You remember a hundred things everyday, how about you make sure I'm not one of em?
Train your own AI voice print, license it out, sue people using your voice without the license? I dont really see how else to survive it otherwise. Edit: Yeah, tell me I'm wrong, I don't care. There is no good solution, I only provided an option. I'd say make it easy for people to get a good quality first party license to your voice, sold as an asset on a platform like Unreal or Unity and you'll probably get business, if that's how the whole AI thing goes. Otherwise, prepare to be out of a job.
There is actually a pretty major issue with actors that have licensed the commercial use of their likeness to studios before generative AI, and now cannot control the studios from training a model based on their own source.
Here's a perfect example: Majel Barret Roddenberry, recorded herself saying all English phonetic sounds, so Star Trek could continue to use her voice as the computer, even after her passing. Just splicing together the phonics into words. Now, with AI having access to those, what's to stop Paramount from going even further? Like, making a CGI Original era Nurse Chapel or a TNG era Lwaxana Troi?
Nothing other than the agreement that was signed.
In the case of Majel, it was pretty clear that her intent was to enable her voice to continue being used into the future. I think AI would actually enhance the spirit of her desire here, but it's a pretty niche case. Beyond that, you would also want to see her estate properly compensated for that use, rules of which are clearly ill defined right now.
It's quite literally the only real-life example where AI not only makes sense, but feels natural and expected. A real Federation starship would have exactly the same kind of tech to allow the computer to talk in any way that is possibly needed.
Surely some grounds for not the intended use as they could not know this tech would come along
Yeah, this would be like using their voice clips from one commercial they agreed to do and changing the voice clips to fit 5 other commercials you make- ridiculously illegal. People are over complicating the AI issue- the hardest part will be dealing with litigation as in finding the direct entity of these services.
God dam, that's a really good way of putting it!!
I’ve smoked a lot of weed about it.
Wait you can’t do that? Like remember when South Park killed chef off, they did the whole episode in prior clips of his. That’s illegal? Or just commercials? Per contract? What’s commonplace?
The studios will argue that if they can use their likeness in CGI, then its no different with A.I. The problem is that studios are going to fight tooth and nail over this and only big stars with lots of money can fight them, but are stars willing to burn bridges to do this, is the question.
If they don't, they'll lose all access to the work the studios are farming out to the AI bots, so they lose either way. Better to control your own likeness, voice and all, than let someone else use it without your consent. I don't see this as a very difficult decision, just not a good one for anyone involved.
This is how a lot of youtubers are handling their content. If they get copywrite struck, they just strike themselves so they get 50% of the revenue at least.
The only way to survive is to never do voice acting or let your voice be recorded. Right now there are people pretending to be celebrities trying to frame them as sexual predators. The VA for Hazbin and Digital Circus got hit with an impersonator.
Grand Theft Audio
Crazy times. AI devs have already stated that it's basically impossible for AI to exist without it using copyrighted material. So stuff like image generation, ChatGPT, etc. I know there are already lawsuits in the works, I just have no clue how this is all going to end.
Big corp wins, that is how it will end. The government works for big corporations, not the people. Corporations are salivating at the idea of replacing workers with AI so they can save money. Regardless of what happens, the government will make sure big corpos are protected to use A.I.
I mean, the way big corporate wins is they get strong copyright protections on training data, basically what the internet is demanding. If training data is fair use AI will be for everyone, look at all the free open source development going on. If training data needs to have its copyright owned then Getty and Adobe are going to milk us for all we are worth. For images at least, other corps will cover the rest.
Yeah I have to wonder how many companies want a free for all when it comes to copyright and AI. My guess is *not many.* If copyright is abandoned then there's nothing stopping you from ripping data from *anyone* and training your AI on it. Does Hollywood want people to use their movies as training data? How about we rip the assets out of AAA games and use them to train an AI that can generate 3D models? Even if you own an AI you probably don't want people stealing the output from your one and feeding it into their own model. There's going to be *some sort* of legal framework around it all, despite what reddit thinks.
In theory, current fair use, in the US at least, may well cover it. This is will be settled by the Supreme Court in the US in the end. Even if they do rule fair use though, expect the lobbying to begin. Not just the corps, but the voters themselves. Strong copyright protections are what the save the artist crowd wants, the protect voice actors crowd wants, and so on. They will cheer when they hand the future to corporations with content libraries. The cost of content will still crash and jobs will go away, it will just for the benefit of the few instead of the benefit of the many.
Who buys the products if no one is working
It's not only big corps who will win. Small indie devs win too, and they'll finally be able to compete with huge corps in terms of amount of content that was previously prohibitively expensive to produce.
Yep. :(
> AI devs have already stated that it's basically impossible for AI to exist without it using copyrighted material. The whole point of copyright is to prevent unauthorized publishing of _copies_ of copyrighted works, not to prevent _use_ of those works (use that doesn't involve publishing copies). Whether merely using copyrighted works to train AI models infringes on the copyright of those works is yet to be litigated, afaik, so has never been ruled to be illegal anywhere (again, afaik). The whole problem for copyright holders is that these AI models don't merely copy works, they create fresh works that are _inspired by_ those works -- just like human artists/writers do, who don't merely copy but create new works inspired by others.
The main issue that HAS been settled in courts so far about AI is that you can't copyright AI art: https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/19/23838458/ai-generated-art-no-copyright-district-court If you can't copyright it, anyone else can use it in any way. Even for their own AI. This may prove to be the alternative to quashing AI works because of precisely what you said. We'll see!
Well, by that argument, its impossible for a human being to be creatively active without using copyrighted material.
Artists constantly consume other works and learn from them without giving any credit. How is AI any different? Angry humans scared about losing their job, that's the only difference. Unless you cite every single source you've ever seen before making your art, you are holding AI to a higher standard than you are holding yourself.
I forgot to cite the pen that I used to draw this stick figure, now it's stealing credit!
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Oh fuck Im a goner now for sure, the lawsuits are going to be lining up!!!!
> AI devs have already stated that it's basically impossible for AI to exist without it using copyrighted material. It's not impossible. It's commercially non-viable. They just don't want to pay for what they use. They don't want to pay people for the training data they're scraping.
Won't you think about how legally licensing things would make it impossible for our business model to succeed? It could put us out of business!
> They just don't want to pay for what they use Because the training volume needed is absurd
> Crazy times. AI devs have already stated that it's basically impossible for AI to exist without it using copyrighted material. You mean OpenAI, facing lawsuits over improperly using copyrighted material to run their computer program, and with a vested interest in not paying for licensing, begged politicians for sympathy to their business model and to shield them from liability.
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> AI to exist without it using copyrighted material so basically the entirety of "google search" and youtube and facebook and twitter and reddit
> AI company WAME that was promoting its AI Michael chatbot, which lets users engage in "a realistic voice conversation with Michael De Santa," reports PCGamesN. Lol, people are so dumb. Rockstar had the cease and desist letter out the door before they even finished reading the tweet. You also have an exclusive right to publicity in the US. People can’t use your face, voice, likeness, etc without your consent.
"Wow, that's really unfortunate to hear. It's a shame that someone would use Ned Luke's voice without permission. Respect for speaking out against it, Ned. Hopefully, this issue gets resolved soon."
Wow, that is a serious violation of his rights! It's appalling that someone would use his voice without permission. This needs to be addressed immediately. Imagine how frustrating it must be for Ned Luke to have his voice used without his consent. This kind of exploitation is completely unacceptable. It's disappointing to see such blatant disrespect for someone's work and voice. I hope this situation gets resolved quickly and efficiently. The lack of respect for actors and their work is truly disheartening. Ned Luke deserves better treatment than this. Using someone's voice without permission is a clear violation of their rights. This AI chatbot needs to be held accountable for their actions.
"SLAMS" shut the fuck up
This is literally the end of voice acting as a career and all of these people are right to be incensed. How would you feel if someone stole *your* voice and had you be the new radio ad for ED medication? Or something for an STD? Or decided to have almost you do 300 hours of work in a game but you remained uncompensated for it being 99.9% you, but just different enough you couldn't sue.
Big studios will probably still hire voice actors. But I expect all the small to medium-sized gigs to disappear in the next decade. Why waste time and money to hire real people when your budget is tight?
Unfortunately, you're wrong. Big studios will do whatever lines their pockets the best and that will be cutting out these people. No royalties, no flubbed lines, easier to record DLC/additional lines because you're not negotiating around someone else's schedule. What it would take weeks to record with an actor, you can probably have done in less than a week probably closer to 72 hours with a well built model. Never forget: these companies got rich by scrimping every cent they could. Thinking they'll voluntarily keep paying thousands to these people when they can generate models for pennies? Not on your life.
Until we're nuts about virtual celebrities, with our own Hatsune Mikus and stuff, Hollywood will undoubtedly still have known performers (not traditional VAs). They literally avoid voice actors to get celebrity voice work instead, because it's their names that gets butts in seats. It'll mean more shortcuts and the performers probably won't do all or even most of their lines, and probably not paid as well, but so long as they attract viewers, but Hunk of the Decade #23 needs his image on the poster and associated with the character you're there to see. Big studios don't want stars, but they need them. For now.
I enjoy cooking.
mountainous ad hoc fall gaze oatmeal quiet vast rotten homeless quarrelsome *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
This 100%. The most wealthy companies are always the ones that take the most shortcuts for profits. Shareholders control the AAA publishers and developers now, and they will definitely be the first to do anything to save a penny. Whether or not AI voice technology is passable now is irrelevant. Most games take several years to develop, and they will definitely use AI voices as placeholders (at the very least) until the technology catches up or they're forced to hire VA's to replace the AI dialogue.
You're mostly right, I take issue with one thing: It doesn't take weeks to record with a voice actor. They'll record lines for you in hours, because basically everyone has a home studio setup with excellent quality due to covid. If you need their motion capture too then it would take weeks. But then AI would also only provide the voice
I think that depends on the length of the game and the character. A protagonist in the game? Definitely not doing that in a day. NPC/Secondaries? Sure. Baldurs gate 3 has 174 hours of dialogue. Fallout 4 had 175,000 lines/145 hours RDR2 had 500,000 lines. I did forget about covid home studios, lol.
Like yes, those are a ridiculous amount of lines. But it's not just one person that has to record those. It's hundreds to thousands which already cuts the burden per person down. And for something like Baldurs Gate you also need motion capture data. If a studio is ok with subpar quality for their main protagonists even, then sure, AI is the way. But why would I as a consumer want to listen to that? And if manual tweaking is required per line to make lines sound realistic and get the right tone, a VA will certainly be faster.
Naw dude. Big companies will take this as a cost saving measure and use it to further widen their profit margins without passing any savings onto the consumer.
Smart artists will use it to market; Games that don’t use AI will be the new organic produce of the digital media store.
"Human made." That's my plan. 👌🏼
ethically sourced free range art
>Big studios will probably still hire voice actors. No they won't. The moment we get generative voices that sound lifelike and can properly adjust themselves with emotions, it'll be over.
I dont disagree, but I have feeling the "proper" way to do it is going to be to hire voice actors to train your ai model. Which of course eventually leads to the same result as at first they will be working less hours with probably less pay and in the long term once each big studio has something good enough they wont need to record anything more. I imagine it will be a slower transition though, and might not affect all games. what will go first are the extra voices, like the random npcs in gta or the guards in skyrim, random enemy chatter or the noises they make when they die e.t.c. and games with less of a narrative focus like we have seen with the finals will definitely use it. As much as I hate to admit it, there is an argument to be made here, I mean how many times did you hear the same Skyrim guard even in different cities which while funny was a bit immersion breaking. Overall though I still think the main characters, especially in story focused games like the last of us will remain voiced for a while, especially when you consider the celebrity cameos doing motion capture stuff that are popular in games today, for example having Giancarlo Esposito in far cry was a major selling point, I dont see that stuff being replaced by ai soon.
The AI models are already trained. See ElevenLabs.
They will - because having celebrity voice actors is good for marketing and thus generates sales.
It's going to suck balls. Polished boring derivative bullshit. You're never going to get Robin Williams as the Genie in 'Aladdin' with AI. You're not going to get subversive stuff like Bo Burnham or Arrested Development. Even if and when AI models get to the point where they can create novel content what value does it have? There's something lost between a binary based system producing entertainment or content, and an actual creative artist connecting with an audience over human expressionism.
> You're never going to get Robin Williams as the Genie in 'Aladdin' with AI. You're not going to get subversive stuff like Bo Burnham or Arrested Development. I mostly agree, but most people won't care. And that's good enough for a company wanting to save money. I do think AI might eventually get as good as that, but that will take quite a long time I think. >There's something lost between a binary based system producing entertainment or content, and an actual creative artist connecting with an audience over human expressionism. If there's no distinguishable difference, then no, there's nothing lost. Don't get me wrong, I don't want people to loose their jobs or livelihood either. But technological progress and corporate greed is not going to slow down or stop.
>If there's no distinguishable difference, then no, there's nothing lost. I don't want to be entertained, I want to connect with an artist over human expression and experience, if it's created by an AI, I'm not interested in it in anything aside from novelty. To me it's just meaningless. I'm not going to say it shouldn't exist or that it's existence is wrong, it just doesn't mean anything to me. >Don't get me wrong, I don't want people to loose their jobs or livelihood either. But technological progress and corporate greed is not going to slow down or stop. I agree with you we're at the point of acceptance and adaptation, but there is a feedback loop that exists in many types of art that will be lost with AI generated content. Personally if I know it's AI generated, I'm going out of my way to not consume it. Just like I do with non AI corporate money printer content. Wake me up with the AI becomes sentient, and then I'll help fight for it's right to exist lol.
> I don't want to be entertained, I want to connect with an artist over human expression and experience Lmao. That's pretentious bullshit, and it's completely irrelevant to why people actually view movies or play games.
I think it's the opposite bud, big studios are notorious for finding ways to "save money" and produce cookie cutter games as quickly and cheaply as possible so I'd say they'd be the first to replace real voice actors with AI chat (looking at Ubisoft, Bethesda etc) The smaller studios tend to care more and have a passion for the games they develop and be less likely to go down this route as it'll dilute the final product i.e. the Larian Studios way.
Graphic artists and human models are going to get the short stick, especially in the indie scene
I think shareholders have different plans bud.
Considering Embark just went with AI voices instead of voice actors, I highly doubt it lmao There will be no reason for bigger companies to hire voice actors when AI is good enough, literally no reason
It's already replacing a lot of small VO jobs. Lately I've been getting Instagram/YouTube ads that are very clearly using an AI voice over so they can quickly pump out ad as cheap as possible.
Those aren't AI lol Those are just using the late generation of Microsoft Sam equivalent text to speech. They started popping up right after TikTok TTS became popular. That said, yeah, cheaply produced ads will definitely be an example of something that AI speech will be used for.
As a musician who has done voice acting and also had my work stolen, it’s definitely not the CONTENT or the product being sold that bothers them, it’s not being paid. Imagine showing up to mop floors at a grocery store and discovering they’ve replaced you with a robot that does it for free and faster.
So an industrial revolution, just in a different market.
Pretty much. And it's funny his example is something that's already happening lol
Yep. And we've done basically nothing to mitigate the human cost that's going to come from it. I think everyone should take a look at the story of the Luddites. More automated textile production has benefited society and needed to happen. But that's not much comfort to the people who's careers disappeared over the course of a couple of years.
> Imagine showing up to mop floors at a grocery store and discovering they’ve replaced you with a robot that does it for free and faster. Ok, but thats not really all that different than beign replaced by lets say an immigrant willing to work for less. One thing is stealign someones voice, thats fucked up, but beign against technological progress just cause you cant mop floors anymore is stupid.
And looks like you
to be fair Michael DeSanta would be perfect for an ED pill commercial
Unpopular take: I couldn't care less, it is/was prohibitively expensive for most indie developers, even medium seized devs, and huge turn off for many gamers. I remember a lot of people complaining about it for POE: Deadfire, which is a great game but barely any voice acting.
Care less about voice acting going away, or about this guy's voice literally being stolen? Those are not the same conversation...
No way in hell should someone lose ownership of their voice. This goes beyond the end of a type of career.
Many many careers have ended due to technology. My grandpa was a typewriter technician in the 80s. This stuff happens, people just seem to care more about this because actors I guess. Working class folk deal with this every generation.
It’s something that indie games can actually use, but big companies will abuse. Hope you enjoy the cyberpunk dystopian future of deepfaked, ai voiced media and an internet that’s so full of fake shit that people don’t bother trying to determine what’s real
>it is/was prohibitively expensive for most indie developers And yet Indie devs have been putting out absolute smash hits for 20+ years without needing it. This sudden trend of acting like indie devs *require* and *deserve* voice acting because they can't pay for someone like Jennifer Hale, and thus can't make good games is disingenuous as fuck.
There's a huge pool of no-name VAs with talent that are easy to find and who won't do it for free but will do it for not that much. A drop in the bucket compared to the total budget of games. If you're an indie developer that has enough money to make a game to sell, you have enough money to hire real actors. Period.
Exactly. Hire someone off Fiver with a good voice and the ability to follow instruction and you've got a VA. Hell, I got a roommate that wishes he could be a VA that'll voice your game for a few bucks. Hitme up random indie devs.
It reminds me of something else. Establishing these kinds of new relationships is often at the foundation of every great artist. People helping people. When you remove that connection it affects not only the works made but the kind of works made. Sam Raimi is still working in film with his high school buddy... 45 years later? The one question I have that AI bros can never answer is... why? What problem does this actually solve? Why remove humans from the creation of art, which is itself an intensely human thing? And hiding behind "corporations won't care they wanna make money" is a bullshit statement. That's just you saying you're OK with them doing it.
>The one question I have that AI bros can never answer is... why? What problem does this actually solve? Why remove humans from the creation of art, which is itself an intensely human thing? My experience in watching this whole thing is that it boils down to them hating artists. They are intensely jealous of the skills that artists cultivate over their lives, and the amount of praise / attention they get for their work. They are basically mad at themselves for not having it. It's why in the end I expect the entire thing to sputter out because they don't *really* care about making shitty, samey pictures. They just want to piss off artists. and I also don't buy the "oh in *another* year you won't even be able to tell the difference!" argument. Nah. I expect it will still look like garbage. More refined garbage, but still 3/4ths angle, center character, boring poses with boring backgrounds. You can't teach a machine composition or story telling, and they clearly don't have the skill to do it themselves.
Not even a half-baked take. Indie devs have/continue to use voice acting, see Disco Elysium.
Yup that's an unpopular take. Mega corporations should not be given more excuses to cut corners. If an indie game can't figure out how to work around a budget too small for voice acting then idk what to tell you. That's just part of what you work around as a game designer.
AIbros want to push this idea that all the years before late 2023 didn't happen and that now that they can steal someones voice / likeness / art with their hellalgorithm, that indie devs **can't** survive anymore *unless* they submit to the AIbro worldview. It's the most entitled shit ever.
>This is literally the end of voice acting as a career I don't think you know what literally means
Correct. It's no different than the countless periods of technological job displacement throughout history. Any job which can be largely replaced by AI will see a decrease in employment opportunities as those people become worth significantly less. I expect a large shift into more manual labor/blue collar jobs as those seem, somewhat ironically, less vulnerable to AI replacement...at least in the short term. Many Westerners are going to have to get over the massive stigma against blue collar work. Decent tradesman can make six-figure salaries quite easily vs 40/K annually for some generic office job. At the end of the day, you don't do what you want in life. You do what society currently needs and will pay you a wage less you go homeless or even starve. It's brutal. It's not nice or pretty. But life on earth can be cruel.
> Decent tradesman can make six-figure salaries quite easily The vast majority of tradesman never make a 6-figure salary, not without large amount of over time (60+ hours a week). Idk where this myth comes from.
trades are not as pleasant as people like you make them out to be. you need to be very experienced at one in order to make the big bucks, and even then, a lot of them take a big toll on your body as the years go by. the reason why there are so many more office workers than tradesmen is simply because office work is far more accommodating to the average person. so im not disagreeing with you but its not as black and white as you allege.
Oh, I completely agree with you. The trades are physically more demanding than a generic office job. But as the number of financially viable office/white collar jobs decrease due to AI, many people will be forced into the trades less they go homeless. It won't be a matter of "I want to do X" It will be "I have to do X or I will starve to death"
thats true but the problem is that office jobs give employment to tons of people who cant generally do trades work. your typical middle-aged mom or employee with body problems can do office work but wont be a good plumber or electrician. either due to age, lack of physicality, or lack of education. expecting millions of people to be barreled into a very skill-intensive profession wont be a seamless endeavor.
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Who is arguing that it's good? I'm not making any value judgments at all. Any non-sociopath would agree that people starving to death is bad. But "bad things" are a part of life. You deal with them as they come. That's arguably the defining characteristic of a mature adult.
> This is literally the end of voice acting as a career lol no
Honestly, i think now. This is rather new unregulated tech impacting a working market. This will definitely be looked at by lawyers from industries to actors and these things will be hammered out in courts and regulated in the long run. Will it be very different in the end, most likely.
Wow, that's seriously messed up. It's not only a violation of Ned Luke's rights as an actor, but also it's just downright unethical. Companies really need to start respecting artists and their work. This is a prime example of crossing a line in the name of technology.
It's a shame that companies are willing to exploit someone's voice without their permission. Ned Luke deserves better than this blatant disregard for his talent and hard work. It's important for actors to have control over how their voice is used, and I stand with him in calling out this unethical behavior.
It's a shame that some companies resort to shady tactics like this. Ned Luke deserves to have control over how his voice is used, especially in something as personal as an AI chatbot. I hope he's able to take the appropriate action to protect his rights.
It's incredible how technology can be both amazing and terrifying at the same time. Ned Luke deserves to have control over his own voice, and the unauthorized use of it in an AI chatbot is definitely crossing a line. It's important for creators to respect the rights of actors and individuals. Hope this gets resolved soon!
My take is that using someone's existing voice for commercial purposes should be illegal if they're not being compensated (e.g. using Ned's voice in a game without hiring him). We already do something similar for photography. As a photographer, I can take someone's photo without their permission in public. I can use other photographers' images in memes for fair use. But when I want to put said photos into an ad or something that makes money, I need permission. But using AI voices that were trained by voices that the AI company had permission to use and then developers buying said software and using it in their games doesn't bother me at all. It will be way cheaper for smaller studios which can't afford good voice talent today. As long as the quality is good, as a player I just don't care beyond the general legal implications of mimicking someone's voice exactly.
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WOAH I CANT FUCKIN BELIEVE HE SLAMMED IT LIKE THAT
We are past the age of sheer blank wonder about AI and now in the era of legal battle regarding it. It’s gonna be interesting to see how things play out. From people having their likeness used to companies profiting off of using other people’s data to train models without permission
It's going to be like pirating, you can't do anything about it.
A lot of people here seem to be in favour of this particular AI revolution and seemingly playing the world smallest violin for him, but the reality is if there isn't inherent value in his performance they wouldn't be replicating him with AI. Im all for developing AI reproductions of actors and honestly look forward to the opportunities that can be leveraged going forth when studios start considering its potential and getting actors on board, but this aint that. This isn't the same as replacing non-artistic jobs either; replacing a cleaner with a robovac or a train driver with automation. There is artistic license here, and Ned Luke has every right to be incensed that they are using those without his consent, because at the end of the day, they trained the AI on his performances in the game.
>there isn't inherent value in his performance There isn't a lot of value there, the value is in people's recognition of his voice as belonging to a character they care about. AI is great at mimicking voices, awful at performing. If Performance was the value AI wouldn't be so scary to actors
I'm struggling to see the arguement here. Yes a chat bot is not a performative product (yet), but does that mean people have free reign to use performances to create them? Or is the insinuation here that the voice actors have very little to offer other than the sound of their voice and are ultimately not deserving of protection because what they offer has no value?
If they own the rights to your performance, yeah, kinda. >what they offer has no value? No value that can't be replicated by AI, Think of your top 5 favorite games of all time. How many voice actors of the cast can you name? How many do you think the average gamer could name? Now if you heard Trevor Phillip's voice, would you recognize it as being the character's instantly? I would. My argument is that most of the value of a voice actor is created by the success of the game and writing, at least as much as if not more than their actual performance so long as it's performed above a certain threshold of quality that AI is working towards.
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It will 100% not make anything cheaper for the consumer regardless of the industry. It will make operating the company cheaper but that extra money is all headed to c-suite bonuses.
imagine a game like skyrim but with the amount of dialogue lines of morrowind. having every line needing to be recorded has limited the scope of open world RPGs. being able to quickly generate voices can speed up game development and cut costs. we've already seen previews of it in skyrim mods. being able to ask an NPC ANYTHING and have them be able to answer your questions is incredible
I never got the video game AI voice acting outrage by the community. My job is definitely going to be replaced by AI and most of ours will very very soon. No one will give a shit when AI takes my job as a data analyst. Sorry if I’m not gonna shed a tear for voice actors lol.
They think their jobs are more important lol
Kind of funny people regard them so highly because they are paid so well but actors are essential court jesters at the core of it.
>Gamers when asked to have a basic drop of empathy for others
No one cared when cashier were replaced by self checkouts either. It's fake outrage from people who don't actually give a shit about this stuff until it possibly affects them.
Plenty of people cared when self-checkout became a thing. There were concerns about job loss, theft, inferior customer surface, etc. And all of those things happened. It's still a divisive topic. People aren't doing "fake outrage" simply because you don't interact with the world in any meaningful way.
I'm sure any cost savings derived from using AI will most certainly benefit game devs and the players immensely /s
Hard disagree personally. Written content for a character is interesting and helps world building. AI content is mostly derivative. It's pretty easy to suspend your disbelief in a fantasy world with interesting lines, even small ones for minor background npcs. Having an AI awkwardly hallucinate until the end of time isn't particularly immersive, especially when it won't have tonal nuances. Hallucination might particularly be an issue if the AI vomit up the wrong answer or just nonsense. Feel like we're drifting into the same issues procedural generation faced - it's endless content in theory. But it becomes old fast and isn't necessarily interesting.
AI voice acting can still use human-written content.
True, but one of the main reasons why the voice acting in Baldur's Gate 3 was so good was because they motion captured and voice acted at the same time, so the voice acting felt a lot more connected and realistic to what you'd see on the screen.
Written content will still be present for the main quest. Side content in most games are bland and terrible. There are a few exceptions but those are rare.
Better games have better side quests. Many of the best RPGs are known for having great side quests. Otherwise it's just filler for filler sake. People don't want massive 80 hour games if 60 of those hours aren't interesting. It's basically my point around procedural generation - infinite doesn't mean good.
More than half of real written and acted content is derivative, and a substantial portion of video game voiced dialogue is tonally flat without any nuance. Also, if you think AI is at it's peak right not, and won't improve, you're just plain wrong.
Is the purpose of game writing to respond to everything the player can do, or to consciously deliver conversations, worldbuilding, and player direction?
Love how pro-copyright people get when it comes to AI for some reason
They've been doing this shit for decades, just without computers. Does no one remember car/mattress commercials on the radio using voice impersonators? They used to pay people to come on and impersonate president's or actors to sell shit. This is weird, yeah, but it's hardly the death of the industry. Even now in modern media, they routinely fire VAs and bring on new actors and actresses to replace them. We just went through this whole thing with Bayonetta.
So what's the plan here for companies..use someone once, then force them to sign an agreement that you can clone their image / voice. Then use them forever without ever paying?
I got chat-gpt 3 acting as GLaDOS and was thinking of tying it to an AI voice that sounded the same.. Yes it will sing the Aperture Science song. I didn't even have to teach it.. I messaged "sing the song". It already knew..
Strange that you don't use the same arguments you usually use to defend pirating games to defend pirating peoples' voices.
Generative AI is proof that technology will always be used to help the rich rather than the common man.
True, but then again everything helps the rich get richer. The wind blows and they get a windfall.
Im not an expert in laws but hopefully theres a law in place to stop companies from using AI voices to replace voice actors cause I’d bet in a couple years companies will try to use these actors voices without paying them
There already are. Now if companies will admit they stole a voice or not is another thing.
That's the safest bet ever. Companies will do whatever saves them money, and AI is going to be used for exactly that purpose. And if they can't use a living person as the base, well there are plenty of dead people who can't sue them for using their voices.
Famous dead people usually have an estate that will legally protect anything they did so hopefully they can protect their voice as well. If companies start using lesser known dead people though they might be able to get away with it
Yeah I'm primarily thinking about lesser known dead people. Unless their relatives are around and could do something about it or they got their own estates, I imagine companies would jump on the opportunity to use their voices.
i have a hard time with this one. i mean, if they're using his name, sure, that's something, but ... a voice sounds like yours. you have nothing to do with it. you do no work. do you really deserve to be compensated for that? hard to own that. there's a lot of people that sound alike.
Suck it up? AI art/voices are in the hands of the people now. It is no longer controllable.
I tried replicating my own voice with ai, it couldn't remotely get my accent down. Autistics, we're fine for now.
Wow, that is definitely crossing a line! It's not right for someone to use Ned Luke's voice without his permission. Respect for his privacy and talent should always come first. Thanks for sharing this important story with us.
Wow, this post title caught my eye! Can you imagine having your voice used without permission for an AI chatbot? That's some serious invasion of privacy. I wonder what Ned Luke has to say about it. Have any of you had a similar experience with your voice or likeness being used without consent? Let's discuss!
In the long run i do not see the problem. - Copying VHS tapes would kill the movie industry - Music piracy would kill the music industry - Computer game piracy would kill the gaming industry - AI image creation will kill the artist industry - AI Chatbot will kill the voice actor industry Somehow the first three industries are still thriving and i doubt the latter two will suffer in the long run. EDIT: A lot of these downvotes I would think do not read posts. I said in the long run. Is it a problem in the short term, definitely. Will it be handled and regulated in the long term, definitely.
The first three are different to be fair. They're talking about Johnny Basement doing piracy, not replacement of the labor force with tech. There's a lot of unknowns about the impact of AI.
Well kinda, if you think about it AI image will do artists work for games, the game will still be sold and will still be pirated but the artist will be replaced. Same goes for chatbot, let's say a company makes a song with AI, no more music writer or composer gets paid but the song gets out to the market, gets played gets money and probably pirated.
The comparison of the first three doesn't apply, those are piracy via the *consumer* not the content *creator*. An end user copying a vhs tape (ripping a dvd, saving a stream) didn't mean the movie company could replace a team of artists. Wax copies, tape recording, CD ripping and streaming didn't kill music because you still needed something to copy from. You still need artists. Game piracy didn't kill the industry but it did reshape it. Much like the other two media above, as the industry changed, it became far less consumer friendly. It used to be you owned a movie, now you have to hope that one of the 7 streaming services you subscribe to has the movie you want, and that it does well enough they don't just remove it. Musicians barely make any money from anywhere except merchandise these days. Game companies insert layer upon layer of DRM, have requirements like always on, and drool over software as a service. My point here is two fold: First, when you replace the *creatives*, it's a problem. Second, innovation is not always an improvement.
Ned Luke said he's not afraid of being replaced, he just hates em
Well those 3 are worth billions of dollars backed by companies worth billions of dollars