Game Voice Actors and Motion Capture Performers Go On Strike

[ADB1979]

Apparently the strike excludes games that have been in production over 1 year which imo takes a good bit of the teeth out of the power of the strike.

It would suggest so, but this might be because if effects some people but not others and this is essentially now an internal union dispute because anything going forward will seemingly end up with new contracts resulting from this. Lets hope they Nail it with a solid version 1.9 upon release, othewrwise if they screw this up (it's in the interest of the involved lawyers to screw this up (and other parties with "AI" interests)) it will have not been Alpha or Beta tested and released and signed on a version 0.3b so they can tie up the loose ends in a year, and then in another year actors and all else will start to become added to this going forward as they also feel the "AI" sting.

Or perhaps if I were less cynical, it is the personal interests of the Lawyers themselves because the written word was the first to be successfully mastered and that is a significant part of the work they do and if they are not already doing so, some Lawyers will start to use "AI" to get ahead of their competition but not declare it, lawsuit (ironically) ensues, Lawyers involved lust like the voice actors currently are, and perhaps then we might see the massive "AI" bubble pop as all manner of industries start Lawyering up to stop "AI" usage in their lines of work, and this may have a dramatic snowball effect that essentially outlaws (in the West and amongst those who abide by the Law) "AI" across swathes of the industry, but who knows... on that point, If you have shares in nVidia or any other tech companies directly associated or not, they might make lightbulbs and so use components that are also used in the IT industry, when (not if) the "AI" bubble bursts you need to have a balanced mixture of assets, literally do not have all of your eggs in one basket, this is how people get financially (and worse from the effects) ruined when bubbles burst and markets crash.

wonder who will rekt humanity first... AI or mother nature with global warming

"AI" without a doubt.

 

[AusWolf]

While there are undoubtedly talented people in the world, painting a picture of a mountain scene for example or taking a picture whether it’s AI or human makes little difference. If art can be created by paint enema…..

Sometimes we appreciate art not for what it is, but for the skill and effort the artist put into creating it. Or tell me that Mona Lisa is a beautiful woman.

 

[InVasMani]

Sometimes we appreciate art not for what it is, but for the skill and effort the artist put into creating it. Or tell me that Mona Lisa is a beautiful woman.

Often times the exact opposite of that can and will happen as well. A lot of times people put fourth plenty of effort and/or show and exhibit plenty of talent, but receive little or no recognition at all for it.

 

[ADB1979]

Well, a voice actor should act, not express opinion through a character that they themselves have no affiliation with, I give you that. If an actor is unable or unwilling to perform X character because that character doesn't align with the actor's personal beliefs, then said actor is not an actor, just an impostor, and should be fired.

Not "imposter", the type of people you are describing are "ideologues", those who always try to impose their own ideology onto others and throw a tantrum if anyone dare push back with their own ideology, these people almost all fall into one of two ideological camps, I wont name them, I don't need to as they are easy enough to guess. They would only be an imposter if they at first said that they would do XYZ and later refused, but then it is breach of contract, goodbye, next...

The real problem is that the only people who would be able to push anything ideological in a computer game would have to allow those words, phrases etc to be part of that character and I would imagine that would not be the voice actor, that would be the writer, director etc, the only exception would be celebrities who would be able to throw around their weight in the "news" and online and I haven't heard of that happening yet in the computer game voice acting sphere, and I do not care for much cartoons so I cannot talk about Manga voice actors, some of whom I know are household names in Japan and Manga following circles.

A lot of milkmen, chimney sweeps, paperboys, miners had to learn to code.

We had a chimney sweep round a week or so back, middle aged guy, been in the job 2-years.! If I see him again I will ask him if he gave up coding to become a chimney-sweep, after all why not when carers in nursing homes quit to work in a supermarket because it pays better, and has far, FAR better working conditions.

If art can be created by paint enema…..

Damn it if I didn't see that enter No.10 recently (in a frame of course).

Art is subjective by the experience of the sentient being, thus the artist is merely creating something and so the AI programmer becomes the artist. When AI makes art for other AI I wonder what it would be?

It is either used as "input" (source material) to use "AI" to identify and remove it's own faults (and whatever other things the programmer decided to identify as a "fault" and remove it, or a percentage of them to remove suspicion or to hit a certain pre programmed outcome), or "AI" has actually become REAL Artificial Intelligence, at which start the countdown timer for the nuke if you cant isolate it before it truly becomes self aware, you have 30-seconds FYI.!

 

[Flogger23m]

I don't think VAs write the lines they act upon, but rest assured, publishers are very well aware of this. You wouldn't even know a voice was AI-generated if it wasn't stated in the credits. Tech will advance, and while there are already many realistic impressions of real people's voices, it won't be long until it's no longer just realistic, the computer will truly generate human speech - and in every language known to man! No longer will a game developer need to hire 5 to 8 VAs per character to cover most economic regions.

Want your main character fully voiced and fluent in ancient, erudite Japanese? Done. Want it to speak Nahuatl or Hopi? AI will do it instantly. Klingon or Elvish? Those are no problem too! This is what people mean when they say "AI is still in its infancy, give it time" - most people don't have even the faintest clue how mind-blowing that little statement can be, and not necessarily in a good way. It's probably mankind's biggest double-edged sword, and I liken it to playing God - what will we do if we go so deep in this rabbit hole, that we end up creating full sentience capable of evolving faster than we do? And I don't mean Skynet fiction, what I have in mind is probably a lot worse.

I do question that. Many actors/voice actors can't do accents right as is. Of course, if paid actors can't do accents I suppose it won't be much of a loss going to AI. It will be interesting to see how "AI accents" will influence real spoken language as people grow up listening on AI created voice. I think they will need many actors to model their initial models on, and I also assume their initial actors won't be that good.

I have a feeling there will be a big push to replace localized accents but the primary accent (most typically English) may continue to use voice actors for a while longer.

 

[Dr. Dro]

I do question that. Many actors/voice actors can't do accents right as is. Of course, if paid actors can't do accents I suppose it won't be much of a loss going to AI. It will be interesting to see how "AI accents" will influence real spoken language as people grow up listening on AI created voice. I think they will need many actors to model their initial models on, and I also assume their initial actors won't be that good.

I have a feeling there will be a big push to replace localized accents but the primary accent (most typically English) may continue to use voice actors for a while longer.

Well, like every profession, there are people with varying levels of skill. Some VAs are novices, some VAs are legendary - I suppose nothing is perfect. That's an interesting take, by the way. I suspect not much good may come out of that...