cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/gaming/t/354777
Twitter thread in the link
Henry Schrader:So, to anyone who doesn’t know, Hi-Rez Studios, the people behind Paladins and Smite, have stated that they will be using AI to clone voices and refused to add in any words to contracts that would protect actors from it. More info in the thread. Please share to other VAs.
I definitely think some sort of residuals or compensation for reusing their voice AI should happen if they are profiting off of it.
That being said, I see a world in the very near future where voice actors don’t even act out their lines and just say a number of things for recording to train an AI voiced version of themselves. Then directors/creators and just manipulate and use it as they please to create their product.
Some mods in games are getting this already, voiced Morrowind and the like, and I definitely seeing it as a boon. Voice acting has always been a weak point when it came to stuff like that as you can write/script/design the best you can but can lack decent/any voice acting.
Interested to see how things play out.
Yep, even if they don’t clone an existing VA, they’ll be able to find others willing to sell their voice for AI, or just have an AI generate a voice from a mixture of different people. The existing VAs will then never be hired.
Accurate and well executed computer voice is a goal of too many technologies to remain unsolved for long. It sucks for the VAs, but there’s no way to go back.
Developers can still make the choice to hire and work with voice actors in the traditional way, though. Especially if they care about performance. AI voice generating has gotten impressive but it still cant replace good acting.
So not every company will care about this if it means not having to pay, but Im sure some deva will still choose actors. (At least I hope so.)