Voice Actors Alert Comic-Con of Potential AI Risk

At this week’s Comic-Con event, voice actors from renowned animations and video games cautioned that the realm of artificial intelligence has been unleashed, akin to opening Pandora’s Box.

North America’s largest pop culture gathering is taking place during a major Hollywood strike, driven in part by concerns among actors and writers about the intrusion of artificial intelligence into the arts.

Voice actors are at the forefront of the conversation, and now readily available technology allows users to clone someone’s voice and have it read new dialogue — often without their permission or payment.

Tim Friedlander, founder of the National Association of Voice Actors, shared a recent example of a voice actor who had been with the company for three years but suddenly lost his job.

“They said, ‘We have three years of your voice — we’re just going to create a synthetic AI voice from what we already have,'” Friedlander told the press before Saturday’s panel.

The danger doesn’t just come from the studios. Over the past few years, fans have used AI “deep fake mods” to clone famous voices and trick them into reading new material, often pornographic.

“I have kids. There are things I don’t want my voice to say and my kids to hear and ask if it’s something I really said,” said Cissy Jones of the animated series “The Owl House.”

Zeke Alton, whose voice was recently featured in the video game “The Callisto Protocol,” said the voice actors weren’t trying to completely ban AI.

“Let’s be clear – Pandora’s box is open,” he said.

“If you’re going to copy me or any other performer, we should go along with it, and then we should be compensated for using it, which makes us money.”

“Digital Copy”

Artificial intelligence is a key sticking point in stalled negotiations between Hollywood studios and the Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA), which joined a writers’ strike this month.

Actors have accused studios of not taking seriously concerns that would leave them “vulnerable to having the majority of their work replaced by digital copies”.

The studios said Friday that they offered informed consent and fair compensation when a “digital copy” is made of a performer or their voice, and that the union did not respond.

Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA’s chief negotiator, told reporters at Comic-Con that studios want to “bury” AI consent clauses “in some sentence in the middle of a 12-page contract.”

He warned that voice actors are “at the forefront” of the AI debate, with changes “happening faster in voice acting than in any other field”.

For example, studios are exploring artificial intelligence to dub dialogue into foreign languages, which would take away valuable work from voice actors around the world for their local markets.

Another concern is that studios could use “synthesized” voices, combining multiple human voices, without paying any of the original actors.

“Not protected”

Despite the craziness, the strike does not currently affect all of the voice actor’s work, as some of it is negotiated through separate union contracts.

Playing animated characters, announcing Trailers or adding dialogue to background actors in film or television scenes – a very common practice known as “looping” or ADR (Automated Dialogue Replacement) – is prohibited.

But video game voice work is covered by a separate “interactive” media union contract, which is still under negotiation, and can therefore still be carried out without breaking the strike.

Still, Alton warned, “The events of this strike affect not just the acting profession, but all professions.”

“An actor is an actor is an actor. So if we’re not covered at the end of this contract strike, we’re not covered in any contract.”