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I assume it is kind of like yamaha's vocaloid synth program, where an artist or actor has to lend their voice to be used. If you think about that, it could end up actually more of an headache for the studios, than using an voice artist. I assume the voice doner could technically ask for royalty payment for each sold copy for a game where their voice has been used, even if they didn't really worked on it.
As far as I know all these AI based speech software uses either someone's or mutiple voices to generate the audio. So yeah, I do think the unions, lawers etc should really get on the case to clarify complex cases, i.e. if an A.I. uses mutiple voices to generate a new one should all the doners have claim to this new voice.
But if it is only used for rapid prototyping or as placeholders, like in that Obsidian video, who cares.
As far as I know all these AI based speech software uses either someone's or mutiple voices to generate the audio. So yeah, I do think the unions, lawers etc should really get on the case to clarify complex cases, i.e. if an A.I. uses mutiple voices to generate a new one should all the doners have claim to this new voice.
But if it is only used for rapid prototyping or as placeholders, like in that Obsidian video, who cares.
That's the future... my office is currently implementing a system that will make 50% of the staff useless
That's the ideal yeah, but will the government pay people a living wage?
No one wants to stop working to live on the street
That's the ideal yeah, but will the government pay people a living wage?
No one wants to stop working to live on the street
There's going to be a really rough, difficult period for workers between automation and living in a work-free world, if we're able to unlearn capitalism at all. I see where you're coming from but I think the concerns are valid, especially in a transitional period. If this replaced actors in the short term (and maybe a much longer term than should be!) it will just equate to a loss of creative work in a system that still expects you to work.
That said, that's not what this technology is currently doing, even if it's where it's going.
Right? I use programmed drums and bass guitars on a daily basis. I'm sure most people don't even realize that many albums for years now haven't had real drums on them. I can barely tell the difference between programmed drums, bass, guitars, and sometimes vocals vs the real thing at times, because it's all gotten so realistic.
The reason those tools exist is because they save on time and the budget, and are always 100% accurate. That being said, a very talented human actually playing the instrument is always better. The nuances in the playing and feel can just never be replicated exactly.
Further explanation about the use of AI on the game
As one of the studios in the article, this is a pretty ridicolous premise, with todays tech. First of all, referring to us as triple-A is a strange take. We used it to patch in VO for all our sidemissions post-launch for free, by having one person record it on the cheap in one go and using AI to make it sound different, hardly the dramatic end of VO, considering more VO is recorded than ever before for games.
Other than my take earlier, I do wonder how much easier this is to work with if you have someone like a voice director on board. The benefit of a live person is that you can ask them to adjust their delivery of lines whereas with AI I imagine it's not so simple a process.
Furthermore, and not for nothing, but I trust the people who effectively talk for a living when it comes to ad-libbing additional lines more than I trust 90% of dialogue writers.
Furthermore, and not for nothing, but I trust the people who effectively talk for a living when it comes to ad-libbing additional lines more than I trust 90% of dialogue writers.
Technology marches on, certain skills get automated away. Should probably regulated so there's not suddenly a mass unemployment event though. Same reason it's going to be a slow road to driverless taxis and trucks.
It's an interesting moral dilemma. We as a society seemingly have no issues with technological advances coming into some industries and taking away jobs while making it easier/cheaper for companies to run. But in other industries (namely creative ones but certainly not limited to) there's a lot more push back. I guess it's down to how the public view some jobs over other jobs I guess?
Making art feels like it infringes upon things that are considered intrinsically human. Maybe we realize that once the AIs can both work better than us and create more beautiful works of art than we can, we're just superfluous.
Kidding! ...Kind of.
Pandora's box has opened.
AI was never going to stay only in photo beautification and other similar silly stuff.
You need to accept this and adapt as fast as you can.
Some people's reactions in this thread are too dramatic. If only we all reacted like that in the sticky thread about slavery and actually did something.
AI was never going to stay only in photo beautification and other similar silly stuff.
You need to accept this and adapt as fast as you can.
Some people's reactions in this thread are too dramatic. If only we all reacted like that in the sticky thread about slavery and actually did something.
Era is mostly privileged white collar workers. They care because it suddenyly affects them, and not just joe shmoe truck driver or whatever.
It feels like people are overreacting a little. It doesn't sound like Team Ninja is replacing actors, it's just a tool for development because actual VO recordings aren't ready yet. The headline seems kind of misleading in that sense since they're not using AI voice acting over people but AI voice acting over standard text to speech
Ive talked about this a few times over the past couple of years. It's cool tech, especially for something like an RPG where you'd never be able to realistically give players multiple voice options to fit their character aesthetic while also delivering thousands of lines of dialogue.
But this tech is also going to make ripples in the job market. I've kind of been expecting the VO industry to move towards text-to-speech style dialogue ever since I started seeing deepfakes that could semi-convincingly imitate a person. But wasn't expecting to see this shift so soon, AI generation is moving so damn quick.
But this tech is also going to make ripples in the job market. I've kind of been expecting the VO industry to move towards text-to-speech style dialogue ever since I started seeing deepfakes that could semi-convincingly imitate a person. But wasn't expecting to see this shift so soon, AI generation is moving so damn quick.
Basically this, although in the short term this will only benefit AAA publishers, in the medium and long term this will only empower smaller users. This is the story of digital/information technologies
You're going to be ignoring a hell of a lot of games from indie developers going forward then.
I mean, a majority of "Era" doesn't really have overly progressive views, especially on the gaming side and that's a pretty reductive way of framing the argument.
And unless there's a major shift in our society, people are more likely to lose their livelihoods to automation well before we implement ideas to deal with that.
Thanks for this.
Of course it makes perfect sense, but prepare for it to be ignored by the majority of people claiming this means the death of actors in the gaming industry.
We've seen it happen before and it'll happen again...
1) Tech is a novelty, not quite as good as the real deal
2) Tech evolves, gap narrows between Tech and traditional means
3) Tech replaces people 99% of the time
4) Tech becomes ubiquitous, everywhere, repetitive and soulless
5) A niche and artisan-driven alternative to Tech starts taking root
6) Tech brought accessibility and opened up the market. Tech thrives. Healthy niche of craftsmanship.
There is now more people enjoying this thing than ever before.
Autotune didn't replace singers. AI Art won't replace game concept artists. AI VO will not replace voice actors.
It lowers the barrier of entry: it allowed smaller teams that couldn't afford a unique art style or voiced narrative dialogue to be in this space.
1) Tech is a novelty, not quite as good as the real deal
2) Tech evolves, gap narrows between Tech and traditional means
3) Tech replaces people 99% of the time
4) Tech becomes ubiquitous, everywhere, repetitive and soulless
5) A niche and artisan-driven alternative to Tech starts taking root
6) Tech brought accessibility and opened up the market. Tech thrives. Healthy niche of craftsmanship.
There is now more people enjoying this thing than ever before.
Autotune didn't replace singers. AI Art won't replace game concept artists. AI VO will not replace voice actors.
It lowers the barrier of entry: it allowed smaller teams that couldn't afford a unique art style or voiced narrative dialogue to be in this space.
But what of if you can't superstar quality voice acting with the AI shit... and say its cheaper than hiring those actors... whose performance wouldn't be as good.
The end user wouldn't know, they would just think the voice works better in one vs the other.
This is fukced up, but if ever there is tech that can supplant human beings and make something either cheaper, easier, better, or any combination of these three.... its going to be used.
A lot of people just seem to view people in creative fields as a higher class of people who do more important work than other laborers. It's kinda fucked up, but that`s the way it is.
The tractor put a ton of farmhands out of work when it was invented, but I doubt any people in this thread would complain about that.
Can't help but notice that lots of posts like this ITT were ignored because it doesn't support the the fearmongering that this'll somehow be the end of VO. Becuase this is like assuming tat procedural generated terrain is signaling the end of level designers. Or that AI driven animation is the end of animators.
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People are up in arms, and I agree it's quite confronting and I don't feel great about it, but many games already use procedurally generated content so isn't this kind of an extension of that ultimately? Development costs are astronomical, so using tools to mitigate that makes sense, but this is also ripe for abuse. Some muddy waters ahead.
Why?
Do you think a voice actors job is more important than a farmer?
Sigh… Watch the Obsidian dev diary video thing that's been posted 19 times…
People being OK with eventually all human work being redundant, on any field, make me sick. Fucking libertarians... Fearmongering my ass. Tell (at least) half the human population they will no longer have anything to do for a living, I'm sure everyone will be happy! Right? Because nobody likes socialism, too, so... Yeah, nice times ahead.
Lots of knee jerk and embarrassing overreactions in here. The Obsidian video and dev response in here should be threadmarked.
Combat the ethical issues by paying people for their library of voices and then license them as an on-going royalty payment? Ta da, I fixed it for anyone ethically concerned. Of course, you'll get rogue exploitative uses where the libraries are pirated or companies trying to circumvent by using pure AI, but the vast majority would be keen to use real-human bases and have the AI expand from that.
The technology was heading this way, we can all see it on the wall. Will this spread to game development through AI art, sound design, level design or such areas that don't rely on intricate design? Possibly, time will tell there as to what can be replicated. Avoiding these concerns of ethical disruption is something we need to look at early, while embracing the advantages of such technologies.
The knee jerk reactions showcase why we need those systems in place to prevent abuse, because some people literally fear anything in the unknown or uncontrollable. But it's also Era so 🤷♂️
The technology was heading this way, we can all see it on the wall. Will this spread to game development through AI art, sound design, level design or such areas that don't rely on intricate design? Possibly, time will tell there as to what can be replicated. Avoiding these concerns of ethical disruption is something we need to look at early, while embracing the advantages of such technologies.
The knee jerk reactions showcase why we need those systems in place to prevent abuse, because some people literally fear anything in the unknown or uncontrollable. But it's also Era so 🤷♂️
It would probably help if the people who tend to have incredibly angry kneejerk responses had any experience with the topic at hand before voicing their opinion instead of relying on a pure gut feeling/assumptions about the use of a tool. To go back to the procedurally generated terrain example I've seen multiple people take the knowledge that that exists and with their whole chest claim that "handcrafted level design is better" as if devs stop at using that tool and don't spend ages working on things afterward.
interesting. Thanks for this post but I doubt many will actually read it though.
It's definitely not shocking in the slightest, even just glancing at history. I'd probably be excited if decent social safety nets were common, but they're not.
"We've made careers redundant before" is true, but that doesn't really do anything to soften the blow for the people who are eventually going to be made redundant.
...What? Do you think being a scab is only related to farming?
No. My point is that technology has caused a lot of people to lose their jobs and given oppertunities to a lot of smaller businesses. The tractor caused a lot of people to lose their job. Do you wish that the tractor was never invented?
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