If you are battling a video game goblin who speaks with a Cockney accent, or asking a gruff Scottish blacksmith to forge a virtual sword, you might be hearing the voice of actor Andy Magee.
Except it鈥檚 not quite Magee鈥檚 voice. It鈥檚 a synthetic voice clone generated by artificial intelligence.
As video game worlds get more expansive, some game studios are experimenting with AI tools to give voice to a potentially unlimited number of characters and conversations. It also saves time and money on the 鈥渧ocal scratch鈥� recordings game developers use as placeholders to test scenes and scripts.
The response from professional actors has been mixed. Some fear that AI voices could replace all but the most famous human actors if big studios have their way. Others, like Magee, have been willing to give it a try if they鈥檙e fairly compensated and their voices aren鈥檛 misused.
鈥淚 hadn鈥檛 really anticipated AI voices to be my break into the industry, but, alas, I was offered paid voice work, and I was grateful for any experience I could get at the time,鈥� said Magee, who grew up in Northern Ireland and has previously worked as a craft brewery manager, delivery driver and farmer.
He now specializes in voicing a diverse range of characters from the British Isles, turning what he used to consider a party trick into a rewarding career.
AI voice clones don鈥檛 have the best reputation, in part because they鈥檝e been misused to create convincing deepfakes of real people 鈥� from to the 鈥� saying things they never said. Some early attempts by independent developers to add them to video games have also been poorly received, both by gamers and actors 鈥� not all of whom consented to having their voices used in that way.
Most of the big studios haven鈥檛 yet employed AI voices in a noticeable way and are still in ongoing negotiations on how to use them with , which also represents game performers. Concerns about how movie studios will use last year鈥檚 strikes by the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists but when it comes to game studios, the union is showing signs that a deal is likely.
Sarah Elmaleh, who has played the Cube Queen in Fortnite and numerous other high-profile roles in blockbuster and indie games, said she has 鈥渁lways been one of the more conservative voices鈥� on AI-generated voices but now considers herself more agnostic.
鈥淲e鈥檝e seen some uses where the (game developer鈥檚) interest was a shortcut that was exploitative and was not done in consultation with the actor,鈥� said Elmaleh, who chairs SAG-AFTRA鈥檚 negotiating committee for interactive media.
But in other cases, she said, the role of an AI voice is often invisible and used to clean up a recording in the later stages of production, or to make a character sound older or younger at a different stage of their virtual life.
鈥淭here are use cases that I would consider with the right developer, or that I simply feel that the developer should have the right to offer to an actor, and then an actor should have the right to consider that it can be done safely and fairly without exploiting them,鈥� Elmaleh said.
SAG-AFTRA has already made a deal with one AI voice company, Replica Studios, announced last month at the CES gadget show in Las Vegas. The agreement 鈥� which described as 鈥渁 great example of AI being done right鈥� 鈥� enables major studios to work with unionized actors to create and license a digital replica of their voice. It sets terms that also allow performers to opt out of having their voices used in perpetuity.
鈥淓veryone says they鈥檙e doing it with ethics in mind,鈥� but most are not and some are training their AI systems with voice data pulled off the internet without the speaker鈥檚 permission, said Replica Studios CEO Shreyas Nivas.
Nivas said his company licenses characters for a period of time. To clone a voice, it will schedule a recording session and ask the actor to voice a script either in their regular voice or the voice of the character they are performing.
鈥淭hey control whether they wish to go ahead with this,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 creating new revenue streams. We鈥檙e not replacing actors.鈥�
It was Replica Studios that first reached out to Magee about a voice-over audio clip he had created demonstrating a Scottish accent. Working from his home studio in Vancouver, British Columbia, he鈥檚 since created a number of AI replicas and pitched his own ideas for them. For each character he鈥檒l record lines with distinct emotions 鈥� some happy, some sad, some in battle duress. Each mood gets about 7,000 words, and the final audio dataset amounts to several hours covering all of a character鈥檚 styles.
Once cloned, a paid subscriber of Replica鈥檚 text-to-speech tool can make that voice say pretty much anything 鈥� within certain guidelines.
Magee said the experience has opened doors to a range of acting experiences that don鈥檛 involve AI 鈥� including a role in the upcoming strategy game Godsworn.
Voice actor Zeke Alton, whose credits include more than a dozen roles in the military action franchise, hasn鈥檛 yet agreed to lending his voice to an AI replica. But he understands why studios might want them as they try to scale up game franchises such as Baldur鈥檚 Gate where players can explore vast, open worlds and encounter elves, warlocks or aliens at every corner.
鈥淗ow do you populate thousands of planets with walking, talking entities while paying every single actor for every single individual? That just becomes unreasonable at a point,鈥� said Alton, who also sits on the SAG-AFTRA negotiating committee for interactive media.
Alton is also open to AI tools that reduce some of the most physically straining work in creating game characters 鈥� the grunts, shouts and other sounds of characters in battle, as well as the movements of jumping, striking, falling and dying required in motion-capture scenes.
鈥淚鈥檓 one of those people that is not interested so much in banning AI,鈥� Alton said. 鈥淚 think there鈥檚 a way forward for the developers to get their tools and make their games better, while bringing along the performers so that we maintain the human artistry.鈥�
