Voice actors raise strong concerns about overuse of artificial intelligence at Comic-Con

Los Angeles: The issue of artificial intelligence continues to plague Hollywood amid the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes which have frozen the industry leading to the delay of several projects such as ‘Andor Season 2’, ‘The White Lotus Season 3’ and even cancellation of many panels at the ongoing comic con sessions. 

In the midst of these strikes, voice actors have raised their issues with AI overuse at the San Diego Comic Con.

As reported by ‘Variety’, Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the national executive director of the SAG-AFTRA joined a panel at the SSDC, organised by the National Association of Voice Actors (NAVA), he said: “We’ve got to reject the idea that this is just something that’s going to happen to us and we can’t say anything about it. I think it definitely could, the question is whether we’re going to let that happen.”

Along with Crabtree-Ireland, NAVA director Tim Friedlander said: “As a human voice actor, I can walk into a room and get a script that says something that I didn’t either agree to say or something that I would never say, I personally have that ability to walk out of that room.”

“With AI cloning the voices of actors have lost control over what our voice could possibly say.”

He further went on to cite examples of how employees who have lost their jobs because of deep faking and voice modulation.

This has also led to a lot of voice ‘deep fake mods’ which have often been used for phishing and even pornography.

Duncan proceeded to accuse big budget studios of burying AI consent clauses in lengthy contracts, highlighting that voice actors are at the forefront of the AI debate which the studios are trying to ruin.

He also said that changes are happening at such a fast pace in the voice acting industry, that studios are even exploring AI for dubbing dialogue into foreign languages and even bringing the voices of actors who have long since died or become too old to enact their earlier voices.

The voice actors at the Comic-Con panel then emphasized the importance of consent and fair compensation in dealing with AI technology.

They want to ensure that their voices are not misused or misrepresented, especially when it comes to sensitive content.

To that end, Friedlander said that NAVA is working with the European Union to get voice protection written into the AI Act, which is currently working through the European Parliament.

He also said that NAVA has been working with websites of game modders, working on the coding mechanism in order to take down voice mods that have been obtained without the actor’s consent.

–IANS