Comment on I am abandoning Arc Raiders because Embark is stealing voices through AI
realitaetsverlust@piefed.zip 15 hours agoDon’t tell me they HAD to use genAI instead of paying those voice actors for reshoot to begin with.
The didn’t have to, but it certainly makes it easier. And I find it silly to not use a technology that makes something easier if you have it available. That’s like a farmer plowing his field by hand instead of using a tractor.
But the base of this model is to be capable of understanding how any voice works in order to copy how a specific voice work.
First of all, we had Text-To-Speech way before any kind of generative AI. In germany, we had speech synthesized announcements on railway stations for like 15 years at least. Like this here: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/AuIkJ_UGltI. We also had vocaloids for decades now. So it’s wrong to assume we had no idea how voices work before AI.
Second, I get your stance on “I’m not using AI because somewhere up the chain it was developed by morally ambiguous ways”, but I don’t think that makes anything better. You should rate the current use-case, not something that happened earlier in the production chain. AI in itself is not bad. If used properly, it’s an incredibly helpful tool. There’s other and much better hills to die on imo.
Chef6652@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
To follow your analogy:
“The tractor isn’t made off of other people living wage” is what I was starting to answer but… it does a bit, so you are right in a sense. Previously, people where hired to plow the field I guess. And I don’t see this as big of a problem as genAI. But this subject touches more on mass production and capitalism.
I would like to intentionally bend your analogy by stating that it’s not inherently true: if anybody could access a technology that helps them by magically destroying lives in another country far away, would you say the same thing? “It would be silly to ignore it as it makes things easier for me” seems quite short-sighted to me.
stephen01king@piefed.zip 15 hours ago
You’re already using something convenient to you at the cost of exploiting other lives far away. It’s your smartphone.
Chef6652@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
You are right. Now, should we then condone any kind because we condone one? It might be hypocritical to condone one and not the other. But I prefer to chose my fights instead of going for none.
stephen01king@piefed.zip 4 hours ago
True, but there are far better things to fight when it comes to AI then companies that properly make contracts with voice actors to use their voice for AI training.
realitaetsverlust@piefed.zip 12 hours ago
Might be cruel to say it, but that’s called “progress”. The world needs to continue to evolve - latching to old jobs seems silly. We got rid off of blacksmiths because we don’t have the need anymore. Europe once had a huge horse stable industry spanning the entirety of central and western europe. We don’t have that anymore either, because we now have cars. We also don’t have any telegraph operators or switchboard operators (necessary for long distance communication back then), elevator operators or laundry washwomen - these jobs have all been made obsolete by technical advancements.
I think quite the opposite - it’s the long-sighted better option. Progress is never good for those negatively affected in the short term, but we can’t keep jobs around that aren’t really necessary anymore just for the sake of those people having a job.
And in this particular case, there’s not even any loss involved. They used their voice to train an AI, it was explicity part of the contract and they got paid for it. I honestly do not see the problem.