Video game voice actors are fearing that the ability for generative AI to replicate their voices may cost them work and, more fundamentally, control of their own voice.
Video game voice actors are fearing that the ability for generative AI to replicate their voices may cost them work and, more fundamentally, control of their own voice.
With games it’s kind of unavoidable in a long run, they are interactive and dynamic, be it outright mods or just new situations arriving out of gameplay. Being able to adopt the voice or automatically or generate variations of a sentences would be a huge benefit. Not exactly a new idea, we had things like iMUSE that dynamically adjust music for 30 years and effects like reverb have been dynamically added for at least 20. Most cutscenes are also realtime rendered for exactly this reason, you can’t reflect a costume change in a static FMV sequences. Now imagine you want a character to make a comment on the costume or weapon you are currently wearing, you’ll quickly end up with a combinatorial explosion of the amount of stuff you’d have to record.
Expanding it all with AI voices or AI filtered voices (think RPG with character creator) is just unavoidable. You can’t drive a dynamic medium with static content to it’s fullest potential. And of course many smaller indie games just don’t have the money for full voice over to begin with.
I also wouldn’t mind AI just as filter to change a voice, since some voice actors are just way to recognizable.
As long as they pay the actors fairly for use of their voice and/or likeness, it’s fine. The problem right now is the exploitation of people’s personality rights.
Yeah but still there will be less work, eventually they will generate new voices not related to nobody, yeah in some cases if they want the fandom of or popularity of a famous person yeah that will still be needed as you say, but for generic NPCs? An AI generated voice that is a new person in a way will be enough, so less work for voice actors for sure.
Ideally they’d just have AI do all the voices and get rid of the voice actors altogether. Maximum profit at all cost.
A company will want to pay voice actors a one off fee to train their voices, cut them loose, and then licence it out in perpetuity. Probably with greater legal protections than the underlying actor.
Yeah, it’ll be like buying instrument sample packs for keyboards. Electronics musicians have been doing this for ages. Now you’ll be able to buy the “12 gruff voices” pack and tell it to read your script. It’ll be great for NPCs, but probably not good enough for main characters in AAA titles.
If anything, someone needs to create a more effective marketplace for actors to licence out their voices rather than just handing their livelihoods over in a single payout deal.