Actors' Union Agrees To AI Voiceovers For Video Games (variety.com) 35
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Variety: SAG-AFTRA signed a deal on Tuesday with an AI voiceover studio that sets terms for the use of artificial intelligence in video games. The union announced the deal with Replica Studios on Tuesday at CES in Las Vegas. Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the union's executive director, said that the terms include informed consent for the use of AI to create digital voice replicas, as well as requirements for the safe storage of digital assets. At a press conference, Crabtree-Ireland said the union wants to channel emerging technology to benefit performers -- rather than trying to stand in the way. "These are the kind of terms that producers can agree to without disrupting their ability to make content," Crabtree-Ireland said. "This is an evolutionary step forward. AI technology is not something we can block. It's not something we can stop. That's not a tactic or a strategy that's ever worked for labor in the past."
AI was a major issue in the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. The union ultimately reached a deal with the major studios -- represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers -- that established consent and compensation requirements for the use of AI to replicate actors' likenesses. The deal did not block studios from training AI systems to create "synthetic" actors that bear no resemblance to real performers. SAG-AFTRA is now engaged in a similar negotiation with a coalition of major video game studios. The union has obtained a strike authorization vote, though talks continue. Crabtree-Ireland said that agreement with Replica Studios could help spur those discussions.
Replica Studios launched its AI platform in 2019. The company sells AI voices to video game developers from its library of "ethically licensed" voices. Last year, the company announced a new iteration of "Smart NPCs" -- non-playable characters -- that could use OpenAI or other language models to interact with video game players. Crabtree-Ireland said the agreement will open up new employment opportunities for voiceover performers who want to license their voices for use in video games. The deal pertains only to "digital replicas" -- using AI to re-create the voice of a real performer, living or dead. It does not apply to AI training to create synthetic performances.
AI was a major issue in the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. The union ultimately reached a deal with the major studios -- represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers -- that established consent and compensation requirements for the use of AI to replicate actors' likenesses. The deal did not block studios from training AI systems to create "synthetic" actors that bear no resemblance to real performers. SAG-AFTRA is now engaged in a similar negotiation with a coalition of major video game studios. The union has obtained a strike authorization vote, though talks continue. Crabtree-Ireland said that agreement with Replica Studios could help spur those discussions.
Replica Studios launched its AI platform in 2019. The company sells AI voices to video game developers from its library of "ethically licensed" voices. Last year, the company announced a new iteration of "Smart NPCs" -- non-playable characters -- that could use OpenAI or other language models to interact with video game players. Crabtree-Ireland said the agreement will open up new employment opportunities for voiceover performers who want to license their voices for use in video games. The deal pertains only to "digital replicas" -- using AI to re-create the voice of a real performer, living or dead. It does not apply to AI training to create synthetic performances.
What happen? (Score:5, Funny)
Somebody set us up the bomb!
all your base are belong to us (Score:5, Funny)
all your base are belong to us
Except (Score:3)
Actors were not consulted before their union set them up. So stay tuned how this will develop. I for one would think it will not end well for the union.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Except (Score:4, Interesting)
Actual voice actors in social media platforms such as X - https://x.com/xandermobusvo/st... [x.com]
Re: Except (Score:2)
Or here - https://x.com/blumspew/status/... [x.com]
Re: Except (Score:2)
What does trump have to do with this?
Re:Except (Score:5, Interesting)
it should be pointed out that:
- Consent should be required before an AI ingests material
- If the actor/actress/voice-actor is of a living person, they must be paid as though they did the performance themselves.
- If the actor/actress/voice-actor is deceased, and thus can not consent, then their estate should be paid as though they are.
In some cases AI's can ingest material non-commercially, reasonably, as long as there is no way to extract that material back out. So for a TTS you'd have to do something like this:
- Train equally on 10,000 named voices
- Generate 6 unique voices from those, and then train a second AI only on those 6. (Male, Female, Androgynous Adults, and Male, Female and Androgynous Children)
Those 6 voices can then form the basis for generic TTS, and can then be fine-tuned back into the actor/actors/people who were in the ingest data if those actors likenesses are approved. Fine tuning will adjust the pitch and accent but not suddenly enable the voice to sing without an actual performer.
For the most part, I feel that AI's use in TTS is more helpful than hurtful, because you can not perfectly replicate a voice without the original actor, and you'll only fool people who aren't paying attention. Storing and replicating child actors voices is immensely useful since children age, and can't redub themselves. Imagine having a TV show where the children stay children-sounding the entire time, but the actual performance is done by adults using their own child voices they recorded a decade earlier.
A lot of AI stuff is cherry picked to hell and back and most results people might not realize is actually pretty poor. Research AI's aren't trained on 96khz 24-bit studio audio, they're trained on tape-recorder quality 22khz 16bit audio because that's what reasonably fits on a consumer GPU to train.
But commercial use? I don't think it should exist. If you're going to do a video game or a television show with an AI voice, it should cost just as much to get the actual actor, and if the actor doesn't want to "do it" themselves, but blesses Replica to do the performance for them, then that's fine, but that money should be going to the actor, NOT Replica. The second there is a cost differential between the real actor and the AI, the studios will opt not to pay the actor as their first choice.
For video games explicitly however, sometimes you just want the actor to do flavor text, but haven't written it yet. The amount of games that have "voiced storyline" but no voiced side-quests is kinda aggrivating, and I would rather have everything voiced. It's likely just not done because you don't want to hire 300 different voice actors to fill out the cast of a game that you don't yet know how big it is, or if you will retain them with each update. If it doing that could be satisfied by picking a group of 300 actors in a specific accent needed, by AI, problem solved. And the actors would still get paid the same in that case.
But unlike visual works (eg AI painting) nothing is being lost if an AI does the performance for a voice actor. It won't sound perfect, but doesn't have to be perfect if it's not a principle role in the work. All principle roles should not be AI.
The best use case for AI in a video game is making the player able to type in their name and have the game call them MikeHunt RobInSteel as though it's a normal name.
Re: Except (Score:3, Informative)
That sounds like a really stupid use case.
I can think of a lot more practical ones. One of the hardest things about putting voice actors in games is that the dialogue has to be planned well in advance, and any part of the game designed to be dynamic to add immersion ends up in a loop, and you keep hearing the same shit over and over again. Take the side conversations in elder scrolls for example.
Or better yet, mods. Modders, who create stuff for free obviously can't afford to hire vice actors. The mods are
Re: (Score:2)
"I can think of a lot more practical ones. One of the hardest things about putting voice actors in games is that the dialogue has to be planned well in advance, and any part of the game designed to be dynamic to add immersion ends up in a loop, and you keep hearing the same shit over and over again. Take the side conversations in elder scrolls for example."
I guess you haven't played Baldur's Gate 3.
Re: (Score:3)
Some interesting ideas, as you say an AI voice would be ideal for flavor text in video games. You have to assume thet any big software company will be able to create a decent "text-to-speech" module soon - as in, the same quality as a mediocre voice actor - and they won't be paying voice actors anything more than a one-off fee to develop it.
The temptation to use it for the whole game will be too strong to resist for some game developers.
Recorded vs. SAPI? (Score:2)
Seems like this is crossing the line between recorded characters (think Madden's voice in the 90s 16-bit days) and SAPI characters (think text-to-speech) and this means less work for more pay....
Re:Recorded vs. SAPI? (Score:4, Insightful)
Since when has pay been linked to how hard someone works? A CEO doesn't work 1000x as hard as a janitor.
Pay is based on market rates, which in turn are based to a small extent on how much value the labour produces. A good voice actor can really make a game.
Re: (Score:2)
Since when has pay been linked to how hard someone works? A CEO doesn't work 1000x as hard as a janitor.
Well, a CEO doesn't do 1000x the manual labor work of a janitor. Neither does a computer programer who gets paid much more than a janitor.
That is really a poor comparison.
Completely Obvlivious (Score:1)
This is an evolutionary step forward. AI technology is not something we can block. It's not something we can stop. That's not a tactic or a strategy that's ever worked for labor in the past.
He's completely clueless. Copyright laws would stop AI dead in its tracks. Sure. Underground you may be able to use the actors' voices using AI, but good luck making money off it without their consent.
Re: (Score:2)
Someone said the actors were not consulted first by the union. If that's the case, then this may be overturned, but if the actors voted for something like this, they are truly short-sighted. And the promoter of this whole order?
They thought they were signing up for AI makeovers.
use pre-1928 data (Score:3)
Train the AI to produce faces/voices based on pre-1928 movies, audio, and color photographs/film. And yes color movies did exist back then. Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
The union wins not matter what (Score:2)
The union will use anything close to a "likeness", so they'll find an "actor" to match a voice.
First they came for our monosynths (Score:2)
Next they'll redefine "video game" (Score:2)
Now that AI has its foot in the door, next step will be to redefine "movie" as "video game" so they can use AI to replace actors in movies as well, despite recent union wins. Think about it. If you define "video game as a "puzzle viewers try to solve in video form" just about any movie could be classified as a "video game."
Re: (Score:2)
Nonsense. The critical aspect which makes a video game into a game is that it contains a test of skill and the game rewards the player depending upon the degree to which they past that test.
Movies contain no such test and no such reward.
Re: (Score:2)
You and I know that, but whoever said that common sense would prevail here?
Re: (Score:2)
No.
There are many video games that do not have a "test of skill". You would probably scoff at them, but there's a bunch of games like "walking simulators", and some of them literally have no puzzles to solve/enemies to fight/anything to avoid in them: you literally walk around and look at things. Some don't;even tell a story; they just drop you into an environment. They still are video games. I know, I know, to you they aren't a "game", but they are. So no, that's not a critical aspect of a video game. I'd
Prodigy (Score:2)
Bad for future voice actors (Score:2)
No need for new actors when you can just keep using the old AI models.
AI voices replace voice actors...bottom line (Score:2)
Fucking actors (Score:2)
Threw their voice-actor colleagues under the bus. What a pack of assholes.
Re: (Score:2)
How, exactly? I must be misunderstanding, I thought the same rules apply to the actors, as to the voice actors.
Queue the horrendously offensive commentary... (Score:2)
Queue the wave of videos of actors appearing to say horrendously offensive things that someone goaded a game AI into saying, and then overdubbed onto an unrelated lip-syncable video in 3...2...1...