Actors Object to AI Voice Generators: 'It's a Violation of My Rights and a Slap in the Face'
Voice actors are speaking out against the use of their voices by artificial intelligence. It all started with their colleague's accusation of harassment.
Artificial intelligence is developing at a very fast pace and it has both many supporters and opponents. The problem at the moment is not AI per se, but the way the technology is used by humans. This has been seen firsthand by Erica Lindbeck, a voice actress, who has lent her voice in such games as Cyberpunk 2077 (Misty), Persona 5 (Futaba Sakura) or Nier: Automata (Anemone).
Actors crowds against "theft" of voices
The aforementioned artist entered the discussion with a person who, while creating a certain movie, used her voice and artificial intelligence to generate dialogues. The actress did not like this very much, so she asked her observers to report similar creations to the moderation of sharing services. At the end of the day, however, she was accused by the creator of the movie of harassment and as a result, she decided to leave Twitter. Now other voice actors have taken her side, opposing the generation of voice by artificial intelligence.
The list of actors who share Lindbeck's opinion is long, and includes such people as Jennifer Hale, known among others as female Commander Shepard, Doug Cockle, a.k.a. Geralt of Rivia, or Justine Huxley, who provided the voice of Huxler in Apex Legends or passersby in GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2.
"To make things clear:
If you don't have permission to use my voice, you shouldn't use it. This also applies to AI. By doing so, you are violating my rights and slapping me in the face. Thank you in advance and please do not do this," wrote Jennifer Hale
Jennifer Hale's post received 12,500 likes and nearly 1,700 retweets. This shows not only how respected the actress is in the industry, but especially the fact that her post is shared by a huge group of people, including many voice actors.
Erika Lindbeck's case was also directly addressed by Josh Keaton, known from games such as Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, Death Stranding or Horizon Zero Dawn, who without mincing his words, took up the subject of the aforementioned person, who used the actress' voice for the film and accused them of harassment:
"Eat shit.
People rightly say that calling what you do theft is not harassment. If that's what you call the consequences of your own actions, then you're a wimp.
Erica is a wonderful person and she didn't deserve to be treated this way," said Josh Keaton
