Support NeoGAF

[CrustyBritches]

I agree with him. I’m not sure of any real-world examples. There’s a site basically dedicated to being an AI-Geralt soundboard. Maybe they make ad revenue?

 

[Fake]

It is…. In the same way kitchen hand dishwashers felt about their hands be replaced by dish washing machines.

Same as men getting replace by machine in cars factory or women getting replace by automatic voice on bank support. Happens A LOT here in Brazil, but media don't quite care about.

They know that shit happen all the time in many other jobs, but only when started to affect them they like 'is the end of world' or 'this is not right' So, I don't quite get this fuzz.

 

[HerjansEagleFeeder]

AI don't understand sexy voices, not in a million years.

AI also doesn't "understand" what a "colorful, moody picture" is, yet it's consistently able to produce one if you ask it to. All you need is good algorithms and a bit of tagging/meta data in your initial training set.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Same as men getting replace by machine in cars factory or women getting replace by automatic voice on bank support. Happens A LOT here in Brazil, but media don't quite care about.

They know that shit happen all the time in many other jobs, but only when started to affect them they like 'is the end of world' or 'this is not right' So, I don't quite get this fuzz.

Every company would have shitloads of paper pushers processing orders decades ago. The first job I had out of school was pretty old school with lots of of paper and fax form orders and the department handling these orders was giant. Tons of old ladies who'd been with the company for 20 years would be like 90% of the department.

My current company is way bigger in terms of sales and orders, almost everything is handled by SAP. There's none of this clipboard and faxed orders anymore. The department that handles orders is two people. And their job isn't even to process them from the start, but to fix any computer errors or last minute changes.

The reason you get a lot of loud flak about AI s because the term AI is used. And people associate that with terminators taking over pushing them aside like HAL. On the other hand, it's pretty mundane to say SAP automated a lot of admin and sales and shipping. When was the last time anyone said SAP and EDI took over office admin and kicked employees to the curb? Never.

Also, creative types are the loudest whiners out of all employees in the world. No shame. Anything goes on Twitter from personal life, work life, badmouthing bosses, badmouthing competitors etc.... People in other industries just find another job.

 

[OmegaSupreme]

When AI came for the voice actors, nobody cared.

When AI came for the game testers, nobody cared.

Then AI came for your job and...

We'll be long dead before that's a possibility.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

When AI came for the voice actors, nobody cared.

When AI came for the game testers, nobody cared.

Then AI came for your job and...

Computers and automation have already come at every other industry for decades. Creative types are the last ones, since the process seems to be grassroots creation. But even in creative roles, electronics have created roles and killed roles. Before computers and photoshop, drawings were done by hand. It takes a very skilled person to do paintings and frame by frame animation like old school Disney animators. Now most art is digitally made on a PC screen at some point. So all the traditional painters and fine artsy people get replaced by Photoshoppers.

 

[FoxMcChief]

Ehhh. Everything is cool until it takes your job.

 

[Jayjayhd34]

Theft implies your taking somthing away from someone and depriving the individual of item you are stealing.

 

[FoxMcChief]

Theft implies your taking somthing away from someone and depriving the individual of item you are stealing.

Agreed. Maybe VA’s need to lower their cost. Adapt or die.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Agreed. Maybe VA’s need to lower their cost. Adapt or die.

Or alternatively, if they have a hard time making a living off on and off work, then just triple their fees. If they think they are that good and deserving, they'll get hired.

Think of it like a consultant or contractor with unpredictable work schedules. It might last a week. It might be a month of work. Thats it. Our company hires tax contractors every year for about a month to help close off the year. Then they leave. Who knows where they go next. They get paid like $70/hr.

On the extreme end is someone like Tom Cruise who probably gets paid $100,000/hr if someone does the math.

If VA work is even more unpredictable, then just charge a company $1000/hr. Surely if they think they are that good they should make more money than a bunch of old people doing tax reconciliations by themselves for a month.

 

[FoxMcChief]

Or alternatively, if they have a hard time making a living off on and off work, then just triple their fees. If they they are that good and deserving, they'll get hired.

Think of it like a consultant or contractor with unpredictable work schedules. It might last a week. It might be a month of work. Thats it. Our company hires tax contractors every year for about a month to help close off the year. Then they leave. Who knows where they go next. They get paid like $70/hr.

On the extreme end is someone like Tom Cruise who probably gets paid $100,000/hr if someone does the math.

If VA work is even more unpredictable, then just charge a company $1000/hr. Surely they think they are that good and they can make more money than a bunch of old people doing tax reconciliations by themselves for a month.

Good point.

But I’m ok with going back to no voice acting. It’s not that important, at least to me.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Good point.

But I’m ok with going back to no voice acting. It’s not that important, at least to me.

Agreed.

I'd admit for sake of a minimum standard of VA quality, I dont want to go back to the CD-rom days where every console and PC game had god awful cut scenes. The acting was so bad half the time I dont even think they were hired actors. Probably half the work were programmers putting on a costume and doing double duty.

But it got to a point it's got good enough.

And the problem is now so many games have unskippable cut scenes and story narratives, games get less gamey and more like a movie. At least for shooters and sports, it's still pretty gameplay focused. But not always. One reason I dont like playing Forza Horizon isn't just because I prefer circuit racers. But because that game is one annoying party festival with people gabbing all the time (over doing it). On one hand, I dont want games to be dead silent with zero voices all the time, but I also dont want it to be annoyingly overdone.

 

[Jayjayhd34]

Agreed. Maybe VA’s need to lower their cost. Adapt or die.

.
I still think it should be crime but does not fit under what most countries interpreted as theft.

 

[cyberheater]

We'll be long dead before that's a possibility.

Lol. You clearly don't follow what's happening with A.I.

 

[Three]

The market will work this out, as it has always done.

I will say, too, that these are the same people who want to get paid for work they did years ago. Imagine a home builder wanting a cut every time a house is sold or resold or rented out. Nonsense.

I know this thread isn't about residuals, but it IS about people who traditionally have overvalued their own market worth.

The market will go to the cheapest option which is somebody being able to create/recreate a voice via prompts and AI without paying anyone.

 

[ByWatterson]

The market will go to the cheapest option which is somebody being able to create/recreate a voice via prompts and AI without paying anyone.

If it's quality, why should the consumer care?

 

[Three]

If it's quality, why should the consumer care?

They wouldn't, the VAs would. I'm only pointing out what the inevitable answer is to "the market will work this out". It's always the lowest cost option.

 

[March Climber]

Can this be solved with royalty checks?

Like the VA gets paid a certain amount per amount of lines used or something if the product is sold in any way. Thus, if someone happens to make a mod using AI, it wouldn't be an issue since the mod is free.

 

[Fake]

Can this be solved with royalty checks?

Like the VA gets paid a certain amount per amount of lines used or something if the product is sold in any way. Thus, if someone happens to make a mod using AI, it wouldn't be an issue since the mod is free.

Can't say if this can be solved at all. Will depends how cheap AI will cost in comparison with VA.

Others things to mention are some bad works from AI inself. Unless there are humans checking if the AI did a 100% job or not.

 

[March Climber]

Can't say if this can be solved at all. Will depends how cheap AI will cost in comparison with VA.

Others things to mention are some bad works from AI inself. Unless there are humans checking if the AI did a 100% job or not.

You're too zoomed out in perspective with your scope. Zoom back in with me for a minute. I'm not talking in terms of the entire landscape of the future and generative A.I., as that is too broad and unanswerable of a topic. I'm talking about a band-aid solution as of the present day, where actual human voices are still being used and simply modified.

Other companies are already developing tools to do A.I. checks, both visually and audio, since as of now there's still a 'tell' when it's used. I'm sure there are legal steps being taken as well. What do you think is the current day, band-aid solution here? For me I only see Royalty checks being the case that can cover all bases, unless I'm missing something.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

The market will go to the cheapest option which is somebody being able to create/recreate a voice via prompts and AI without paying anyone.

Depends if the market base only cares for price. Not every product (in fact most) dont have the biggest sellers being the cheapest product.

If the quality is there, people will pay for it. If it's all about price, everyone would shop at dollar stores as their first priority.

The people who care the most about AI/automation are people who know there's a chance they cant beat a bot. So if they want to keep their job, they got to prove to companies their human VA is better than bots which can churn out anything from impressive stuff to dumbass creations. we've all tested out AI Image Generators and it's hit and miss. And depending on the industry, some people are scared about losing their job and some dont care about AI one bit.

 

[Fake]

You're too zoomed out in perspective with your scope. Zoom back in with me for a minute. I'm not talking in terms of the entire landscape of the future and generative A.I., as that is too broad and unanswerable of a topic. I'm talking about a band-aid solution as of the present day, where actual human voices are still being used and simply modified.

Other companies are already developing tools to do A.I. checks, both visually and audio, since as of now there's still a 'tell' when it's used. I'm sure there are legal steps being taken as well. What do you think is the current day, band-aid solution here? For me I only see Royalty checks being the case that can cover all bases, unless I'm missing something.

Is hard to answer without analying the sittuation, not to mention if is has a solution will not matter unless VA accept their terms.

I can't say about gaming because is a different case, but for example, in Brazil sometimes brazilian voice actors that work in cartoons dub can be not avaliable at the moment, so we can only rely in others VA, but the VA have a very different voice in comparison with the original VA. I remember the VA of Lex Luthor in the cartoon series is very iconic, but one day they just replace with a terrible VA. Was like two o three episodes until the original VA back to dub again.

In this particular case, in the day the original VA is not avaliable maybe using AI with a similar voice can the solution, until the original VA back to the work.

 

[Three]

Depends if the market base only cares for price. Not every product (in fact most) dont have the biggest sellers being the cheapest product.

If the quality is there, people will pay for it. If it's all about price, everyone would shop at dollar stores as their first priority.

The people who care the most about AI/automation are people who know there's a chance they cant beat a bot. And depending on the industry, some people are scared about losing their job and some dont care about AI one bit.

If there is a difference in quality then I agree but we're talking about customers not being able to see any difference in quality between the real person and an AI voice replicating that person.





If I wanted Obama to give a video speech which would be cheaper and could you tell the difference?

About two years ago when this was relatively new and little to no games were using AI voices I created a thread asking for it. Since then AI voices have blown up a lot more and I can see it from the VAs angle too.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Is hard to answer without analying the sittuation, not to mention if is there a solution will not matter unless VA accept their terms.

I can't say about gaming because is a different case, but for example, in Brazil sometimes brazilian voice actors that work in cartoons dub can be not avaliable at the moment, so we can only rely in other VA, but the VA have a very different voice in comparison with the original VA. I remember the VA of Lex Luthor in the cartoon series is very iconic, but one day they just replace with a terrible VA.

In this particular case, in the day the original VA is not avaliable maybe using AI with a similar voice can the solution, until the original VA back to the work.

Good example.

In media, assuming the company even does multi languages, it's usually capped at maybe the top 10 languages too... English, French, German, Spanish etc... Pretty sure in the world there's more than 10. Add up all the variants and you probably got like 100 or 1000 languages. Assuming AI improves, you can get bot voices for 1000 languages. At minimum, the media can at least be guaranteed to have the main 10 without ever needing to worry about VA availability or costs.

Now someone will bring up.... well, every big corporation can afford hire for all language recordings in their studios. Maybe they can. Maybe it takes too long.

But what about all the other smaller media that cant? So dont use AI and just limit it to English and French?

Gamers in English world are lucky beause the majority of games have English first because we are the biggest market. But lets say for example, you, me or someone else only knows an Indian language and you want to play and listen to a western studio game. You cant understand any of it unless they translated it or hired an Indian VA guy and all the other VA crew to go with the game. It's not like the game will have just one person talking.

Just look at the console world where there's always been a barrier of Japanese only games begged for translation so someone else can play it. Well, maybe going forward AI can handle all that so even that obscure anime game can be played in someone's local language - including the VA. For me, I dont care about those games so if they stay Japanese thats fine, but hey it opens up regional gaming. And it goes the other way too. Maybe a reason why a lot of Western games sell shit in Japan is because a lot of them dont know English and the game has no Japanese language mode.

 

[Jayjayhd34]

Can this be solved with royalty checks?

Like the VA gets paid a certain amount per amount of lines used or something if the product is sold in any way. Thus, if someone happens to make a mod using AI, it wouldn't be an issue since the mod is free.

Copyrighted voices would be absolute nightmare have seen how well some imersontators are.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

If there is a difference in quality then I agree but we're talking about customers not being able to see any difference in quality between the real person and an AI voice replicating that person.





If I wanted Obama to give a video speech which would be cheaper and could you tell the difference?

About two years ago when this was relatively new and little to no games were using AI voices I created a thread asking for it. Since then AI voices have blown up a lot more and I can see it from the VAs angle too.

And maybe some people dont care if there's a difference or if it's the real thing. As long as it's good enough that works.

Last year I bought some $4 Betty Crocker baking pans from Dollarama. Good enough. Instead I could had bought $50 Cuisinart pans. I could afford it. The Betty C ones are good enough. My wall has Ikea prints. They were $15. If I wanted to I could buy $150 or $1,500 original works. The $15 ones with a $10 matching frame are good enough.

Just because I can afford it doesn't mean I have to ball bust my wallet paying for the highest priced thing on shelves, purposely trying to support corporate wages.

 

[Three]

And maybe some people dont care if there's a difference or if it's the real thing. As long as it's good enough that works.

Last year I bought some $4 Betty Crocker baking pans from Dollarama. Good enough. Instead I could had bought $50 Cuisinart pans. I could afford it. The Betty C ones are good enough. My wall has Ikea prints. They were $15. If I wanted to I could buy $150 or $1,500 original works. The $15 ones with a $10 matching frame are good enough.

Just because I can afford it doesn't mean I have to ball bust my wallet paying for the highest priced thing on shelves, purposely trying to support corporate wages.

Of course the consumer wouldnt care. Refer to my post in this thread:

They wouldn't, the VAs would. I'm only pointing out what the inevitable answer is to "the market will work this out". It's always the lowest cost option.

 

[ShadyAcshuns]

They can adjust it enough to where it doesn't sound exactly like any specific voice actor. Nothing anyone can do about it.

 

[Dacvak]

No idea where we’ll go from here. The VAs have some valid complaints and points, but I just don’t see how we can ever put the cat back in the bag. The tools are out there. It’s only gonna get worse from here on out, and not just for voice actors. Give it a year or two, and we’ll have convincing performances in fan movies from AI-created actors.

 

[DaciaJC]

I understand why'd get pissed at his voice being replicated without authorization in for-profit projects. Free fan-made mods are a completely different story, as far as I'm concerned, leave 'em alone. I love quality voice acting, it's one of the biggest reasons why I decided to buy (and ended up loving) BG3, so I don't want the art to be completely subsumed by AI technology; but at the same time, I think for a lot of smaller studios or tiny indie teams (or again, mods), AI offers a lot of possibilities that weren't financially feasible until now, so writing it off entirely because "art is a creative enterprise, AI has no place in it!" or whatever is short-sighted.

The means of producing high-quality content without needing heavy moneybags are suddenly accessible to way more people than before, and I think that's awesome in its own right.

 

[Pejo]

Established legacy voice actors like him have little to worry about, but the less established ones could see work dry up soon. I think that anime dubbing will probably begin implementing it sooner than games.

Man I can't wait for AI subtitles. No more ideology inserting during localization anymore.

 

[Esppiral]

I have yet to hear an AI replicated voice that doesn't sound like a souless robot.

 

[UniformDeliverance]

Here’s the reality.

Ai voice gen will allow for transformative gameplay options not available now. Everything from NPCs actually being able to say your custom characters name, to dynamic conversations (imagine actual specific and detailed voice acting during Skyrim radiant quests) to full voices conversations between players and NPCs. Completely impossible in our current model.

And it can do this for a fraction of the cost it currently takes to record voice over.

We have seen over the years voice actors demanding more and more compensation, even royalties, for game projects. Is it any wonder companies would be looking for better and more affordable solutions?

I mean good heavens just imagine how much faster localization would be.

At the end of the day, yeah, sucks for voice actors, I get why this guy would say it’s theft, suits his personal interest to carry that narrative. But AI will create a better experience for customers, and a better experience for game development: so it’s going to happen like it or not. So you can cry about candle makers losing jobs, or you can learn how to make lightbulbs.

 

[alphachino]

apperently every human being has a unique voice as unique as one's fingerprint. Global content ID for unauthorised use of a voice could definitely be implemented in the future. Same as we have for music now

 

[MrTroubleMaker]

Stuff needs to be done about this... This app on twitch is making loads of money and do not pay these voice actors.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Here’s the reality.

Ai voice gen will allow for transformative gameplay options not available now. Everything from NPCs actually being able to say your custom characters name, to dynamic conversations (imagine actual specific and detailed voice acting during Skyrim radiant quests) to full voices conversations between players and NPCs. Completely impossible in our current model.

And it can do this for a fraction of the cost it currently takes to record voice over.

We have seen over the years voice actors demanding more and more compensation, even royalties, for game projects. Is it any wonder companies would be looking for better and more affordable solutions?

I mean good heavens just imagine how much faster localization would be.

At the end of the day, yeah, sucks for voice actors, I get why this guy would say it’s theft, suits his personal interest to carry that narrative. But AI will create a better experience for customers, and a better experience for game development: so it’s going to happen like it or not. So you can cry about candle makers losing jobs, or you can learn how to make lightbulbs.

here is the reality.

every time there is a new technology, jobs are lost but also new jobs are created as well as the requirements for such jobs; everything with the purpose of more productivity and efficiency.

the creation of unions (for example) didn't happened just because; workers literally where dying due to the lack of protection or/and greed from the companies.

people can hate or praise A.I. the reality of the situation is that it has to be regulated and people have the right and obligation to fight for such regulation, ethical/moral/responsible implementation of it.

 

[systemr123]

It's not only theft but also immoral to use someone's voice to say things the person did not give any consent to. For example, if you have some ideological stances and they use your voice for something against that.

It's disgusting and should not be accepted regardless this is uncharted territory legal-wise.

I think one of the hard things legally, is to say that someone uses your voice if it’s not directly stated even though it sounds exactly like you. There are 8 billion people on the world so an ai voice will always sound like “someone”.

If ai legally cannot use voices of people, then you can’t use it at all because of this very reason I guess.

 

[RoadHazard]

What about imitators? Some are VERY good at sounding like other people. Is that also theft?

I'm not saying he's wrong, I just don't know if he's exactly right either.

 

[K2D]

I agree with him.

How can you not see it? This theoretical mod is copying a guy's voice without his permission to give it some sort of unearned and stolen legitimacy/professionalism.

1) You give mods too much credit.

2) Legally there is a precedent for distribution without monetization.

3) It depends a lot on transparency.

4) They are not copying his voice per se, only his voice work based on a single character.

5) If people starts using his synthesized voice in commercial work I would have a BIG problem with it - same as with visual arts.

 

[DavJay]

he is paid for his work. If he doesn’t work, he doesn’t get paid. Just like cashiers, he is no longer needed.

 

[FunkMiller]

I'll never get over how dumb all of you fucking dolts sounds when you say you don't care about people's livelihoods being taken away by AI.

You think your fucking won't be up for the chop one day too, if no regulation is formulated in these early days?

 

[deriks]

If they were using his voice without his consent for a commercial project then yeah, I agree. But in regards to fan based mods, I don't really see how it is theft.

Basically this

I don't see any harm to a fan using just to the sake of the fan service. I mean, I can't play a Batman game without Kevin Conroy's voice, so I'll mod the hell of future Batman games. Could Warner sell this? Don't think so, or at least not without the family having some money of it

 

[cyberheater]

It’s not his voice. It’s a reconstruction based on audio characteristics. Can’t see how they could legally stop that.