The Actors Guild of the USA approved the use of AI for dubbing games
The Actors Guild of the USA SAG-AFTRA has entered into an agreement with Replica Studios. She is engaged in artificial intelligence-based technologies that are able to imitate human voices to voice characters in games.
Game studios can now access digital copies of voice actors' voices through Replica Studios to reproduce them in games. Before using copies of the voices, companies need to get the actors' consent. The Guild emphasizes that actors are not required to give studios perpetual rights and may refuse to use their voice in new games.
The guild calls the deal with Replica Studios revolutionary. She claims that cooperation with Replica Studios allows actors to earn additional income, and also protects voices from illegal use in voice acting.
The network reacted ambiguously to the incident. A number of actors and representatives of the gaming industry criticized the deal between the Guild and Replica Studios. In particular, Bungie's senior sound designer Paxson Helgesen said that in reality, the actors are not eager to sell digital copies of voices, but the Guild leadership is not interested in their opinion.
“safely explore new employment opportunities for their digital voice replicas” this verbiage is so bizarre. No actors are actively trying to monetize their AI replica, *we don’t want it in the first place.* We want to act. Which, if put to vote, you would have known already.
— Crypto Benny (@fxcryptotrades) January 9, 2024
Paxson Helgesen's tweet
Some Guild members wrote on social media that they did not know about the agreement with Replica Studios until they saw the news. According to them, the leadership did not hold a vote. At the same time, the Guild's press release says that the agreement "was approved by the Guild members whom it affects."
“Approved by affected members of the union’s voiceover performer community.”
I would humbly consider myself one of the top voice actors working in games. No one asked me about this. No one reached out for my opinion.From what I'm seeing, no one asked any of my peers either. https://t.co/1ODo3d9Du9
— ᴇʟɪᴀꜱ ᴛᴏᴜꜰᴇxɪꜱ (@EliasToufexis) January 9, 2024
Tweet by Elias Toufexis, who voiced the characters in Starfield, Deus Ex and Assassin's Creed
It is noteworthy that at the end of last year, the Guild agreed on a strike against gaming companies, with the help of which, among other things, it was going to limit the use of AI in games (it did not take place). However, there was no talk of a complete ban on AI. Instead, the Guild demanded decent payments to actors and transparent working conditions from game companies. Apparently, the deal with Replica Studios does not contradict these requirements.
