Video Game Voice Actors Go On Strike In Wake of AI Concerns

When AI generated images were a fairly new concept, it was sort of a marvel to behold. It was impressive how someone could make a machine understand the text input, and create something new from its existing data that it was fed.

Those images were often crude, warped, unrealistic, often uncanny. In many ways, they still are, but it was still fascinating, because the moral issues were largely out of sight at that point.

Now, several years later, the AI generated images have gotten good enough that they can, and in some cases have, replaced real human artists. Most of the time, it's used for secondary or tertiary assets in order of importance. Like random posters and fliers on the walls, or portraits for less important NPCs. Some games even got major pushback for it, like Justin Roiland's High on Life, which used AI to generate various fake movie posters.

However, the AI has been coming for voice actors as well, as the aforementioned High on Life is one of the earliest examples of having AI voice acting in a video game.

Another major example is Obsidian's The Outer Worlds. The company known for their dialogue rich role playing games has a whole video about how they handled this process. They very much had the ethics in mind, and were upfront and fair to their voice talents about it, they did all they could to ensure that the talent, which brings the characters to life, is not slighted in any way.

In theory, that would be the end of it. A perfect example of how to do things, right here, readily available for others to see and hold every other company to this standard. In a perfect world, maybe that would work, but it's more complicated than that.

Following another AI controversy surrounding The Finals, which used AI generated voice acting for dynamic announcer commentary, Gianni Matragrano pointed out that some of the excuses that companies might use to justify the use of AI voice acting are incredibly flimsy.

And this is where we are now. The context is important here, because anyone who is not familiar with the prior course of AI generation in video games might not understand what all the fuss is about. So what if a game uses AI voice acting, it's just a tool, right?

While it is a tool, it's one that can be abused by companies to cut costs and deliver you, the player, a result that is noticeably inferior to the work of real voice actors, even when done well.

SAG-AFTRA already raised this issue previously, but it seems like now they are finally able to make a big push and apply pressure on companies to create conditions that would satisfy the people whose work is vital to the creation of great games.

As detailed in their post, the strike that started today is a result of long-lasting but fruitless negotiations, as the relevant companies continuously refused to agree with the demands of fair compensation, content, and protection from potential abuse through AI.

It will be interesting how this will all play out, but if we know anything about SAG-AFTRA, it's that they will not back down or compromise until the individuals they represent are treated fairly. They know full and well that billion-dollar companies need voice actors more than voice actors need them, so a favorable conclusion feels like only a question of time.