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A story mod for “The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt” has been heavily criticized from professional voice actors due to its use of AI to simulate voice-acted dialogue lines.

The A Night to Remember mod for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt sets Geralt on a vampire-hunting adventure, and the team behind it has used impressive technology and existing voice lines to give Geralt new dialogue, using an AI tech called CyberVoice to simulate Geralt’s voice. That allowed the mod team to generate entirely new dialogue in addition to reusing and remixing existing voice lines. CyberVoice is a paid service and its website is incredibly tight-lipped about how the technology works, but think of the technology as similar to Deepfakes, albeit in an audio rather than video format.

As one can see, the results are very accurate with the AI copying Doug Cockle's voice almost perfectly.

Some voice actors are now crying foul over ethical concerns:




Are voice actors a thing of the past? Will they be completely replaced by AI generated voices? Is it even legal to use the voice of a real life actor to generate more dialogue without his permission?
The Witch 3 mod sure has opened Pandora's box in that regard.

 

[Little Chicken]

I don't support the use of explicitly mimicking someone else's voice.

If you're an indie dev with no acting talent who can't afford VA then go for it.

 

[ManaByte]

I think we should replace everyone on Twitter with AI. Would be less complaining.

 

[Lethal01]

I'm all for it, not just for the mod but wherever applicable.

 

[KyoZz]

Without mentioning this is a mod made by passionate fans, you need actual records of the voice to get this done. So no actor = no voice = the AI has nothing to work with.

 

[jaysius]

That's pretty amazing what an AI can do for Geralt's voice.

 

[rkofan87]

shit this is well done.

 

[Halo is Back]

Seems like that is still his voice no? If that's the case then the original actor is still needed. This type of thing is great for those quest mods where most modders can't hire actual actors.

 

[Lanrutcon]

Troubling.

 

[TheInfamousKira]

This is actually really cool, and it has some feasible "not for the evulz," potential applications, too. If there were a release form signed by VA's allowing the use of AI in situations like, say...if they were horribly sick, so as not to get recasted and set production behind. Or if a VA was forced to be away from the studio during recording sessions. Would be great to not have your entire work canceled because of real life issues, sickness, or tragedy.

And this is Frankensteining a little and would have to be done on a situational basis, but suppose someone would pass away before their work was done? This could be a way to cap off their last performance and allow it to be heard by fans, as opposed to sitting on the cutting room floor for eternity.

 

[Aion002]

It's a free mod right? If so... Most won't care (unless it's Nintendo property, they would hunt them down like dogs).

However, if they decide to somehow sell it, then the voice actor and the company that holds the rights over the audio that was used to make this new "recording" can and will (probably) rightfully sue the makers.

 

[Holammer]

It's just a matter of time before movies are made with fully digital actors and voices.
It'll be great! No more aging actors, scandals or them dying from overdosing on a medicine cabinets worth of drugs or auto-erotic asphyxiation.

 

[Noncanon Ship]

I think we should replace everyone on Twitter with AI. Would be less complaining.

I'm not altogether sure that hasn't already happened. They uncannily all have the same personality and opinions after all...

 

[Fbh]

Pretty impressive.

Will be interesting to see where this tech goes from here.

It's a free mod right? If so... Most won't care (unless it's Nintendo property, they would hunt them down like dogs).

However, if they decide to somehow sell it, then the voice actor and the company that holds the rights over the audio that was used to make this new "recording" can and will (probably) rightfully sue the makers.

Yeah it's a free mod, so I imagine not much will happen.

Otherwise whoever owns the trademark for Thomas the Tank Engine would have destroyed the modding community by now

 

[TrebleShot]

Amazing would love to see more and how extensive it is, the few lines he says are quite awkward so would like to hear more of a sample size and how fluid longer paragraphs are but can’t help but be impressed.

someone needs to mod MGSV with David Hayter in .

 

[Ezquimacore]

Are voice actors a thing of the past? Will they be completely replaced by AI generated voices? Is it even legal to use the voice of a real life actor to generate more dialogue without his permission?
The Witch 3 mod sure has opened Pandora's box in that regard.

Voice actors, warehouse employees, cashiers, customer service representatives etc etc. Everything will be replaced by AI, get use to it because the future is dark and full of food stamps.

 

[Beelzebubs]

As a voice actor, this scares the shit out of me. You can't say "oh but indie devs are poor and can't afford it" when there are literally thousands of VA's who would do the project for free for exposure. That's a whole shitty trend in itself which devalues the industry.

 

[SLB1904]

now we teaching skynet how to speak

 

[Keihart]

This is kinda tight.
This was also foreseeable, i don't get the surprised pikachu statements.

I don't think it holds a candle to the real stuff, for now, but it is what it is. It's honestly way better that the tools get in the hands of as many people as possible, it's kind of the unstoppable future.

Edit: Also, let's not let the irony of the situation slip, the original game already had some deep learning applied to animations so the workload on animators wasn't as big with the amounts of dialogue the game has.

 

[oldergamer]

Interesting that they used it, but in the end its just machine learning. You can use the same or similar tech for free and generate believable voice ( providing if you have enough hours of input voice over )

 

[Skifi28]

AI is only going to get scarier and scarier. I wonder at which point wer'e going to get laws that forbid AI from taking away certain jobs.

 

[Birdo]

Learn to code, I guess.

(Until we use AI to write code).

 

[FeldMonster]

I love the idea of this in the right circumstances. For example, the voice actor for Shao Kahn in MKII/MK3/UMK3/MKT, Steve Ritchie, can no longer perform due to his hearing issues. It would be fantastic if an AI could analyze his voice, and then simulate how it would sound to state dialogue or kharacter names in the later games.

I am sure that there are other similar situations throughout media, as actors age and their voices change. I would love to have the voices of Mark Hamill (Joker/Hobgoblin), Jeff Steitzer (Halo announcer), Chris Sutherland (Killer Instinct announcer), Peter Cullen (Optimus Prime) preserved forever.

If done correctly, new dialogue could be generated and attributed to the voice actor, including financial income, even posthumously.

 

[GHG]

It's a fucking free mod.

That means free exposure for the original voice actor.

Added bonus, the AI did the work without bitching and complaining on twitter, plus they will work just as efficiently during covid and heatwaves. What's not to love?

 

[LMJ]

Is the mod free? If so then there should be no ethical issue here as no money is exchanging hands...

These voice actors aren't entitled to shit if this is free. If you call this a breach of rights it opens the doors to killing mods altogether as they use licensed sound effects etc ALL the time...

The real story here is the brilliant tech work that an AI algorithm to nearly flawlessly add real canonical sounding dialog to existing games via mods.

 

[Warablo]

Yes, AI should replace everything so we can start focusing on more important things.

 

[Beelzebubs]

Is the mod free? If so then there should be no ethical issue here as no money is exchanging hands...

These voice actors aren't entitled to shit if this is free. If you call this a breach of rights it opens the doors to killing mods altogether as they use licensed sound effects etc ALL the time...

The real story here is the brilliant tech work that an AI algorithm to nearly flawlessly add real canonical sounding dialog to existing games via mods.

Except that the service that provides the AI voices costs money which is essentially stealing from the original creative artists although they have a free option for limited non commercial use.

Thankfully, the AI isn't great at the moment. Listen to how robotic the Geralt voice is on their site (The Monster Killer character). The intonation is okay but it sounds unnatural without the proper breaks in sentences and there's strange (consistent) gaps between words.

SteosVoice (formely CyberVoice) - vocal cords of Artificial intelligence

Ultra-realistic speech synthesis with high quality sound. TTS for content, mod and game creators.

cybervoice.io

I'm not going to get into the whole moral dilemmas where you could have a voice artist literally say anything.

 

[LMJ]

Except that the service that provides the AI voices costs money which is essentially stealing from the original creative artists. Thankfully it's not done too well at the moment. Listen to how robotic the Geralt voice is on their site (The Monster Killer character). The intonation is okay but it sounds unnatural without the proper breaks in sentences and there's strange gaps between words.

If I'm understanding your argument correctly (I admit I may not be) then I would still have to disagree...

There are technology studios that can digitize deceased actors, but the tech company is not responsible for this, but rather the publisher that hired out the studio for the work. However as there is no profit here then there should be no issue either way. This is a free mod, and while they paid for the tech, this is nothing new to modders, they often will use their own money to fund a modding project as it's a passion. Now if there's a patreon/etc then that would change things...

SteosVoice (formely CyberVoice) - vocal cords of Artificial intelligence

Ultra-realistic speech synthesis with high quality sound. TTS for content, mod and game creators.

cybervoice.io

I'm not going to get into the whole moral dilemmas where you could have a voice artist literally say anything.

While it might be unethical, I still don't see any entitlement if there is no money being exchanged, and as I stated earlier it opens the door to attack the modding community who uses copyrighted materials all the time...

 

[Beelzebubs]

If I'm understanding your argument correctly (I admit I may not be) then I would still have to disagree...

There are technology studios that can digitize deceased actors, but the tech company is not responsible for this, but rather the publisher that hired out the studio for the work. However as there is no profit here then there should be no issue either way. This is a free mod, and while they paid for the tech, this is nothing new to modders, they often will use their own money to fund a modding project as it's a passion. Now if there's a patreon/etc then that would change things...

While it might be unethical, I still don't see any entitlement if there is no money being exchanged, and as I stated earlier it opens the door to attack the modding community who uses copyrighted materials all the time...

They have to be given the rights by the families estate to use their likeness in those cases.

I'm not against modding or limited non commercial use in all honesty. I'm against it being monetized as this Russian company is profiting from stolen voice work. Also the moral implications are very messy if you could use somebodies voice/likeness to endorse the Nazis for example.

 

[MightySquirrel]

Quite impressive for AI generated voice over. I'd rather have this than no vo at all.

 

[Kholinar]

Daaaaamn. Geralt sounds literally on-point. This could revolutionize modding, perhaps! I assume it works akin to Deepfakes where you need tens to hundreds of hours of voice clips to train the AI. I wonder if the levelness and monotony of Geralt's voice make the facade more tenable for the AI to maintain; I theorize it might show its limitations for characters with more eccentric inflections and intonation, like Mickey Mouse or some shit. Promising stuff, this!

 

[LMJ]

They have to be given the rights by the families estate to use their likeness in those cases.

I'm not against modding or limited non commercial use in all honesty. I'm against it being monetized.

Isn't that only for commercial use however, if not why not go after all the meme makers and deepfakes as well?

 

[Beelzebubs]

Quite impressive for AI generated voice over. I'd rather have this than no vo at all.

Nothing in the trailer is AI generated. That's all from existing audio from the base game. The AI voices sound pretty shit in all honesty judging by their website.

 

[Bo_Hazem]

I'm already looking for voice over apps anyway. Who this tech improves.

 

[nikolino840]

Voice ai? Like...siri and similar?

 

[BigBooper]

Yep, burn it all down. One mod for one game means we don't need voice actors anymore.

 

[TheMay30thMan]

This isn’t “unethical” in any way, whatsoever. The mod is free. No money is being made. It would be unethical to tear it down. If anything, this is an incredible feature and work of art.

Regarding the future of voice acting, I’m sure we’re a long way before AI voices replace voice actors. It’s a possibility, however. I’m sure there’s a bunch of people willing to sell their voices for a bag of cash. It would only be a “legal minefield” if voices were used for profit without consent.

 

[S0ULZB0URNE]

I am all for them doing this.
As for the actors and actresses....
Waaaa waaaa

 

[nowhat]

I think we should replace everyone on Twitter with AI. Would be less complaining.

Microsoft experimented with this some time back (not replacing entirety of Twitter, but you gotta start somewhere). It didn't go well.

 

[Xenon]

I think we should replace everyone on Twitter with AI. Would be less complaining.

Absolutely, just one was hilarious.

Microsoft launches AI chatbot on Twitter and it turns racist within hours

Microsoft introduced a chat robot designed to interact in the style of a “teen girl” on Twitter, and it went rogue almost immediately, spouting racist opinions, conspiracy theories and a fondness for genocide. The artificial intelligence (AI) named “Tay” - @Tayandyou on Twitter - was intended...

finance.yahoo.com

 

[Kholinar]

Huh. False alarm, boys. None of the voice in this trailer were making use of the AI voice generation. Modmaker is also having a slight meltdown in the YT comments over this, it seems. :/

 

[YCoCg]

Maybe we can take this tech and use it on MGSV to give Venom some God damn dialogue.

 

[RNG]

Well that’s lame I thought the trailer was using the AI voice tech.

 

[Stuart360]

That tweet from the voice actor is pretty funny, this is a mod, i guess probably made by 1 or 2 people in their spare time.
I mean i get it if it was a AAA studio doing this.

 

[alabtrosMyster]

Like every economic activity automation can replace their work...

 

[kiunchbb]

Voice actor didn't give a shit when we automate our iphone and Tesla, what comes around goes around.


(Please don't automate my job)

 

[ArtemisClydeFrog]

"Voice actors" lol. Thoughts and prayers to those reading off a script.

 

[kiphalfton]

"Voice actors" lol. Thoughts and prayers to those reading off a script.

I feel about as much pity for these voice actors who are put out of work as any other person who is put out of work, due to advances in technology. Zero. It's the nature of the beast.

 

[Oddvintagechap]

"Voice actors" lol. Thoughts and prayers to those reading off a script.

Very interesting. If theres any opinion that can be made, theres someone to express it seems.

It’s inevitable for “deep fake” of many things. I would just sue. Call it day. Law would probably side with the voice actor.

 

[Pagusas]

Curious, are these same voice actors upset at AI generated art assets? How about ai upressing textures? I mean those take away time from paid artist who could be going through reworking those textures…

I get how scary this is, and contracts will start needing to take this stuff into account, but in this specific use I feel it’s ok. It’s a non-profit mod. The modder isn’t paying CDR to use its textures, game play models and all that afterall