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- cross-posted to:
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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?”
I sympathize with the voice actors but at the same time I think this is a losing battle. I expect AI voices to be widespread and employment opportunities for voice actors to diminish (although I think high-budget games will still use human voice actors for a while). Maybe being open to AI is actually the best case scenario for getting at least some of the money involved.
So tech outpaces legislation, as it is wont to do since legislation is notoriously slow, and so because of that our reaction should be to throw our hands up and not even try? Perhaps you don’t sympathize as much as you think you do.
I don’t think this is a case of tech outpacing legislation because I expect that ultimately legislation will be rather favorable to tech. There’s too much money to be made using AI for the government to extend copyright protection to training data.
(Plus, I sympathize with voice actors in the sense that I’m sad that a lot of them will lose their jobs, and that’s independent of what I think about AI development and copyright law.)
Horse drawn carriage drivers, industrial seamstress, miners. Being supplanted by technology is a tale as old as time. The only difference is the perceived uniqueness of creative jobs holders that look down on the then blue collar work, now suffer the same sort of fate as them. Eventually the only work to be done is gonna be performed by AI. With the economy being trended towards AI buying other AI products. Ironically, the only work humans be doing at will be back to heavy labour jobs, with the ones at the top being AI.
They’re not giving up though, what they’re doing is getting ahead of it. Assuming their deal is favorable for their members, they’re making it so that anyone who wants SAG-AFTRA synth voices has to go through their contracted company which they have collective bargaining power or strike an equal or better deal. Along with blacklisting companies from SAG-AFTRA work that use non-union synth voices.
This is way better than leaving actors on their own to bargain with companies, which would have definitely happened. Rather than have companies wear individuals down and drive pay down, they get to dictate the terms, together.