According to SAG AFTRA, the deal will “enable Replica to engage SAG-AFTRA members under a fair, ethical agreement to safely create and license a digital replica of their voice. Licensed voices can be used in video game development and other interactive media projects from pre-production to final release.”
The deal reportedly includes minimum terms and the requirement for performers’ consent to use their voice for AI.
However, several prominent video game voice actors were quick to respond on X, specifically to a portion of the statement which claims the deal was approved by “affected members of the union’s voiceover performer community.”
Apex Legends voice actor Erika Ishii wrote: “Approved by… WHO exactly?? Was any one of the ‘affected members’ who signed off on this a working voice actor?”
Yeah, but matching TTS to a character’s voice is where you would need it.
You don’t need AI to do that, that kind of system can be made independent of AI. It’s just not worth doing for this one use case vs using it for a whole voice.
Honestly, the problem is that “AI” is a dumb term that is way over used in these situations. Outside of Science Fiction, AI has generally been used to describe what “the next big thing” computers can do.
Using a term like “Large Language Model” to refer to ChatGPT explains what it actually does. Or Deep-Learning Text to image models for the image generation.
I remember playing around with TTS on a Apple ][ plus as a kid, there is nothing new about that, but using statistical models to have them imitate a voice is new, but just lumping them all in with Artificial Intelligence, is just dumb.