SAG-AFTRA Approves AI Voice Actors, Enrages the VA Community::SAG-AFTRA has approved AI voice actors and partnered with Replica Studios, enraging the voice acting community on a global scale.
So much for labor unions establishing worker’s rights.
SAG-AFTRA Approves AI Voice Actors, Enrages the VA Community
Submitted 4 months ago by L4s@lemmy.world [bot] to technology@lemmy.world
https://insider-gaming.com/sag-aftra-ai-voice-actors/
Comments
uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 months ago
mindlight@lemm.ee 4 months ago
What should SAG-AFTRA have done differently do you mean?
uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 months ago
Represented everyone. When animators were adequately represented yet the CGI techs weren’t, Disney just stopped making drawn animated films and resorted to CGI, which is all we get now.
Essentially, however unions fail to provide for the working class gets exploited by the owning class.
And it’s fair if labor unions can’t fix everything, but then let us admit that our capitalist system is broken beyond what labor can do to fix it. Let’s stop pushing unions as a solution, except as a short-term one that is going to leave some people cold and hungry.
miridius@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Which workers rights are being infringed here exactly?
cashews_best_nut@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Voice actors are likely to lose their entire industry because screen actors are going to eat their jobs. Why pay voice actors when you can just pay for a cheaper AI voice pack of any famous actor you want?
chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Here I go again, playing devil’s advocate…
So, this is an opt-in situation. That means that actors still have to give their permission to have their voice used. Furthermore, they must still give their consent on a per-project basis. Further-furthermore, they still get paid when their voice is used this way.
That being said, this seems like a smart move on the side of SAG-AFTRA if for no other reason other than it’s going to happen one way or the other, though it would have been better to do this a decade ago and have more control, but more on that later. AI is a boulder rolling down the mountain, and creatives are the house at the bottom of the mountain. The boulder is going to destroy the house, and there is no stopping it. SAG-AFTRA is taking actions to save what they can from the house and at least make sure that there are protections in place for future houses. This is what happens when no one wants to keep up with tech and has to be reactive instead of pro-active.
We rolled the corpse of TUPAC on stage at Coachella in 2012, 11 years ago. That’s 11 years to sort all of this shit out and set up some protections for using likenesses with the prospect of new tech. That’s 11 years to get your shit together for the future. But everyone was like, “Ha ha, truck drivers, fast food workers, and the rest of the poors will be the first to suffer under the boot of advanced automation. AI won’t come to Hollywood. No one can replicate such masterpieces as Catwoman and Bee Movie. We are invincible.” Well, here we are, and Hollywood and other creatives are caught with their pants down. None of this shit is new. Hell, Hollywood has been making movies about this kind of shit for decades, they were just too busy sniffing their own farts to realize they were the ones in trouble.
So, now, SAG-AFTRA are having to make concessions to stay relevant in an emerging system, instead of making the rules themselves like they should have been doing a decade ago. Is anything going to change? Is anyone going to be looking forward? Or can we expect another strike in 10 years because the policies put in place today were merely stop-gaps and did nothing to shore up for the next boulder the rolls down the mountain?
LWD@lemm.ee 4 months ago
You missed something crucial:
Film, TV, and streaming are still protected from AI voice actors crowding their space with soulless slop. It’s video games that aren’t.
In addition, this means that real voice actors will now have to compete with AI actors who don’t even have to show up to audition. And who wouldn’t like to play Disney’s new Black Panther game featuring the real* voice of Chadwick Boseman?
half_built_pyramids@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Race to the bottom, race to the bottom, race to the bottom again
lemmie689@lemmy.sdf.org 4 months ago
When I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the slide Where I stop and I turn and I go for a ride 'Til I get to the bottom and I see you again Yeah, yeah, yeah, ha-ha-ha!
driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br 4 months ago
Opt-in until all the work contracts include the AI permission clause and you sign in or don’t get any contract.
foofy@lemmy.world 4 months ago
It’s a race to the bottom.
Yes, you can decline to opt in, but the guy next to you (or the guy next to him) will opt in and sell his AI voice package for less than it costs to employ a real person. And unlike a real person, the AI voice package can work 24/7 on 10,000 productions at the same time.
If anyone can opt in, then no one can really opt out.
Is this a good thing? For the bottom line of the people making the games, sure. And maybe 3% of that savings will trickle down to the consumer.
But it’s pretty bad for the voice actors.
chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world 4 months ago
I 100% agree with you. That is why SAG-AFTRA needs to step in and make good policies now instead of just plugging the hole in the dam.
golli@lemm.ee 4 months ago
I absolutely agree with this take. This isn’t something that will just go away. Especially for something like video games it just makes too much sense. The best time to address this topic might have been a long time ago, but they are still in a position where they can shape how things will play out. In the short term it might be better to not do so, but eventually someone else will take the opportunity if they don’t.
sugarfree@lemmy.world 4 months ago
This is going to be the future of gaming, AI is going to be heavily involved in many parts of game dev going forward. AI voices aren’t perfect yet, but when they are companies are naturally going to use them.
Davin@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Companies will use them before they are perfect.
iegod@lemm.ee 4 months ago
I have no issue with this. Games don’t need to be perfect. I like some jank.
andrewrgross@slrpnk.net 4 months ago
This is a tough subject, because I agree with you.
I’m not sure what a good agreement would look like in this circumstance. I think, even if this sounds outlandish, we need to start preparing for a post-work world.
I don’t mean post-work in the sense that no one will work, just that the assumption that everyone should find a job is breaking down. Surplus labor is growing, and it’s going to grow more and more, faster and faster, in different industries before others. And it’s going to be disruptive.
Currently, I think that labor unions are a critical part of securing worker rights, but this is another example that they’re not going to be enough to respond to shifts on the order we’re witnessing. We need strong unions, but we need a broad social movement towards guaranteed services as well.
stackPeek@lemmy.world 4 months ago
And I’m going to hate it.
FluffyPotato@lemm.ee 4 months ago
Oh great AAA games are going to get even worse… I hope indie devs have better sense to not use AI voices at least.
Skates@feddit.nl 4 months ago
Well, indie studios aren’t known for huge budgets - they generally don’t include voice acting at all. Between no voice acting and AI voice acting, which is better?
FluffyPotato@lemm.ee 4 months ago
None. Bad voice acting is worse than none for sure. Like for example Morrowind had a pretty good story and writing but Oblivion’s voice acting has been a joke for over a decade now.
flatlined@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 months ago
It’s a thorny issue. In the position of an indie dev/studio i get using cheap (or free) art, be it voice, textures, whatever. In a way a properly licensed ai trained voice is no different from using assets from an asset store.
On the other hand, the current crop of ai are less than fair about where they source the data, so good luck getting a morally neutral voice right now, leaving aside the legal aspect.
A big issue beyond that is how it’ll completely wreck the industry. If Alice licensed her voice for cheap, and I can get it to say whatever I need with minimal hassle why wouldn’t I use that over paying more for a voice actor, where I have to wait on them to actually record and rerecord her lines? I’d be paying more for slower results and more work. This means that even if an individual voice seems ethically sound, considering the wider context and impact on other voice actors it becomes far less simple.
Rooter@lemmy.world 4 months ago
I’m hoping all jobs are taken by AI and we get UBI.
And yes, I’ve heard all the AI fear mongering talking points. Not interested in the AI will kill us all conversation.
And intelligent debate would be fine.
yuki2501@lemmy.world 4 months ago
If UBI isn’t implemented first then we’re fucked. Companies will just use AI to cut costs and discard labor.
No; without unions putting a stop to corporations that idealistic future will never arrive. And that’s pretty simple to prove. Why do corporations do the shitty stuff that they do? Because they can.
TwilightVulpine@lemmy.world 4 months ago
That’s the real problem. UBI is often brought up in these discussions as a “maybe someday hopefully” while AI is here, now.
The longer it’s delayed for UBI to be established (if it’s even going to be), the more people will suffer being driven into more precarious jobs or left to misery. It’s already depressing to think of artists being automated out of art to go work on amazon warehouse or something, but it’s not going to stop at that. A lot of service and intellectual work could be automated just as easily, maybe even more so.
If UBI isn’t already here, then opposing AI is the only sane option labor movements have.
rambaroo@lemmy.world 4 months ago
That sounds like a dystopia waiting to happen. UBI in many countries will keep you at poverty levels, it isn’t going to be a good way to live.
Rooter@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Can you elaborate? Any sources?
gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
Sounds like a union leadership shakeup is gonna happen at SAG-AFTRA in the very near future
KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml 4 months ago
More than likely the video game performers form a new guild/union because they’ve been getting skullfucked since the SAG-AFTRA merger repeatedly. More and more VG performances are going non-union.
smokingManhole@lemmy.world 4 months ago
There is nothing wrong with this news. In fact, it is good news.
We develop technologies, and then we are not supposed to use them? It was obvious that certain jobs had an expiration date, and dubbing is clearly one of them.
If we had to stop progress, we would still be having silent movies, otherwise the person writing the intertitles would lose its job. Or even no movies at all.
RusAD@lemm.ee 4 months ago
If there’s nothing wrong with people losing jobs, then go on, resign from your job. Be the change you want to see in this world.
mierdabird@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 months ago
If voice actors are represented by the same union as all the film and TV actors then they never had a chance. United Airlines had a similar situation in the 90’s where flight dispatchers were represented by the same union as the mechanics - but were outnumbered probably 10 to 1. So dispatch pay and working conditions were an afterthought to the union and even if every dispatcher voted no, if a contract was good to the mechanics it would still pass.
Lightrider@lemmynsfw.com 4 months ago
Fuckingcapitalists
gmtom@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Just like typists were enraged by the photocopier, or how human computers were enraged by electric computers etc.
tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 4 months ago
You’re right, past tech has never had any legal restrictions on how it can be used. In fact, I’m using a photocopier and electric computer right now to put your face in an ad without paying you a cent. Plus the ad is for a perfume that smells like trumps asshole. Good thing we don’t have any laws that you can use to stop me!
gmtom@lemmy.world 4 months ago
More power to you brother.
General_Effort@lemmy.world 4 months ago
EdibleFriend@lemmy.world 4 months ago
… Isn’t sag the one that was just up in arms over AI? Wasn’t that a huge part of the fucking protests?
LWD@lemm.ee 4 months ago
For film and TV, yes. For video games, no.
If you can convince the lowest Hollywood actor he’s better than the best video game VA, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.
TwilightVulpine@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Hah, clever and depressing remix of that classic quote.
SinningStromgald@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Yes, but somehow this deal will be okay even though it looks like some pretty big names in the VO/A community were never asked for their opinion or approval.
GuyDudeman@lemmy.world 4 months ago
When it says “SAG-AFTRA Approves” - doesn’t that imply that all union members were given a vote?
iforgotmyinstance@lemmy.world 4 months ago
The SAG protests were pretty transparently about protecting old money. Actors with hundreds to thousands of hours of footage already out there that can be easily turned into AI models.
Death_Equity@lemmy.world 4 months ago
You only need like an hour of clear voice samples to train an AI VA. More is better, but even a half hour can be enough to be passable.