I think you’re right that (at least for good quality voice acting) we’ll need an input source, but then it can be adapted to sound like the desired voice. Which will be great for keeping characters sounding the same, or having one person ‘voicing’ a whole team of characters.
But I think good voice acting is hard, and a lot of stuff is very subtle, so I don’t think it’ll be as easy as “the sound designer” records all the voices, unless they are also a good actor. If i read out a Shakespeare monologue and then use AI to make it sound like Patrick Stewart or Christian Bale, that won’t make it sound very good. Because I won’t emote and pace the text in the way that they would.
But for simpler stuff (narrating a nonfiction book) or stuff where the quality doesn’t matter that much (lots of cheaper voice acting on shows and games doesn’t seem like it would be hard to replace with an AI) the tech will be amazing.
But we’re so tuned into human communication and voice, that I think it a lot of it will be passable but underwhelmingly mediocre for a long time. Even Carrie Fishers lines in the last Star Wars movie sounded flat and fake, even though they were actually delivered by her, because they were used out of context, so the timing and emphasis and pace all sounded off.
ryathal@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Being able to copy an input is likely possible or will be soon, bur you still need a voice actor to provide input.