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Stellaris gets a DLC about AI that features AI-created voices, director insists it's 'ethical' and 'we're pretty good at exploring dystopian sci-fi and don't want to end up there ourselves'

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Submitted ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨simple@lemm.ee⁩ to ⁨games@lemmy.world⁩

https://www.pcgamer.com/games/strategy/stellaris-gets-an-dlc-about-ai-that-features-ai-created-voices-director-insists-its-ethical-and-were-pretty-good-at-exploring-dystopian-sci-fi-and-dont-want-to-end-up-there-ourselves/

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  • Blaster_M@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    While everyone here is screeching about jerbs, I would like to point out that using AI voices to voice an AI is an artistic genius in itself.

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    • Stamau123@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Yeah it’s real luddite hours here

      “How will voicebot 2.0 pay for his child’s oil now?”

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      • trashgirlfriend@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Are you an idiot?

        People are worried about the actual voice actors who voice act the characters.

        Do you think GLaDOS was voiced by a potato battery?

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      • Excrubulent@slrpnk.net ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        The Luddites ruled actually:

        The Luddites were members of a 19th-century movement of English textile workers who opposed the use of certain types of cost-saving machinery, and often destroyed the machines in clandestine raids. They protested against manufacturers who used machines in “a fraudulent and deceitful manner” to replace the skilled labour of workers and drive down wages by producing inferior goods.

        It’s remarkably apropos to the use of AI to make an obviousoy inferior product, but apparently you think it’s an insult.

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  • deweydecibel@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    The technology was created to replace voice actors. That’s the actual purpose. Its very existence hurts their profession and benefits studios. You can not be a studio, use this technology, and claim to care about ethics, anymore than Amazon can claim to care about the workers as it invests in the machines to replace them.

    It doesn’t matter if you compensate or get their approval, because the fact is the existence of the technology in the industry effectively compels all voice actors to agree to let it use their voice, or they can’t get work. It becomes a false choice.

    If there was no financial benefit, if it truly made no difference in how much a studio pays in labor or the amount the artists make, there would be no reason for studios to want to use it.

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    • Deceptichum@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Technology making labour obsolete is the goal we should all be wanting.

      Attack capitalism not the technology.

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      • Zahille7@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        True, but it’s not quite working out that way is it?

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      • hrtgnt@szmer.info ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        yea, see i just don’t like how we first automated creativity instead of like, idk, manual labor???

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      • ChicoSuave@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        In practice, capitalism will use technology to subjugate others instead of allowing technology to free us from work.

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      • HeartyBeast@kbin.social ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        The technology is magnifying the flaws in capitalism

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    • Even_Adder@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Do you have any source for those claims? There are plenty of better reasons to develop voice synthesis than replacing voice actors.

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      • GalacticHero@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Voiced characters that use generative AI in real time instead of prerecorded lines and a dialogue tree come to mind as an obvious use. How cool would that be, to be playing an RPG and ask any character any question you want and get an actual verbal answer? No way you can do that with voice actors.

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      • GBU_28@lemm.ee ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        The only real ethical concern is around the training data. If all voices are compensated / actively consent to be used in an AI program, then this is just a tool. People losing jobs doesn’t really matter to an individual company. Industries change and technology advances.

        So the real problem is they are using these types of tools, built of the skill of other voice actors, without properly compensating them or getting their consent.

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    • style99@lemm.ee ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      What’s the point of bringing up “ethics?” The job only existed in the first place because of technology, and now people want to argue that there is a right or wrong aspect to it?

      How about the poor candle makers or buggy whip manufacturers? Should we keep downgrading society just to keep a few “artists” happy?

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      • card797@champserver.net ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        The term Luddite comes to mind.

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      • DmMacniel@feddit.de ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Downgrading because we want people to stay employed?

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      • GBU_28@lemm.ee ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        The concern is that the training and potentially production voices are not properly compensated or consenting

        It’s not so much that a new tool is used, it’s that it exists due to the artistic product of people who aren’t profiting from the novel use

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    • Summzashi@lemmy.one ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Old man yells at cloud

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    • Cypher@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Good to see you have formed a strong opinion without having all of the information.

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    • Katana314@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I have an idea for the practice that could help us better explore practical uses. Basically, a company may train an AI off an actor’s voice, but that actor retains full non-transferable ownership/control of any voices generated from that AI.

      So, if a game is premiering a new game mode that needs 15 new lines from a character, but their actor is busy drinking Captain Morgan in their pool, the company can generate those 15 lines from AI, but MUST have a communication with the actor where they approve the lines, and agree on a price for them.

      It would allow for dynamic voice moments in a small capacity, and keep actors in business. It would still need some degree of regulation to ensure no one pushes gross incentives.

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      • Nibodhika@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Congratulations you essentially described what Stellaris devs did.

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    • otp@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      claim to care about the workers as it invests in the machines to replace them.

      A company that invests in UBI could make that claim!

      Obviously Amazon doesn’t do that now. But I could see it happening when people stop being able to buy their junk

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  • CosmoNova@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I get that record sessions are a huge hassle and simply paying VAs per AI-generated voice line is easier for everyone, but it somehow makes Paradox look a little careless to me.

    Stories like these also set a precident. This is what voice ‘acting’ will be like for a moment before it becomes effectively eliminated because voice libraries will become diverse enough quickly and there will be no need for a single more voice actor to be included. It seems like VAs are basically forced to sell their voice to AI companies quickly to at least make a quick buck before they never get a job again.

    There’s probably no stopping it, but that made this read all the more frustrating to me.

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    • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      This is what (modern) voice acting has always been.

      Actually read a few interviews with professional VAs or watch their streams if they do that. Two VAs actually interacting with each other and reacting is almost unheard of outside of very specific productions (and mostly are done as a stunt for some BTS footage). They read a dozen different takes of every line and go through like five different scripts worth of dialogue. And then they do “efforts” that are just general grunts and emoting that are used for the moment to moment gameplay and to pad out a scene that had heavy rewrites. It is why so many professional VAs can stream “their” games… because they genuinely have no idea what is going to happen.

      Paying to train a limited use model off of a specific VA (or even a group of VAs) is the “logical” extension of that. And, arguably, it is a “good” one (with some MASSIVE caveats). Everyone lost their god damned mind over that FPS that came out last year where the announcer was (allegedly?) a model trained off of a VA. But it also meant that you could have stuff you would never have had otherwise. Nolan North isn’t going to get a paycheck to sit in a booth all day commenting on random matches. But a model that can read out a team’s name and string together different reactions? That is actually really cool and WAY better than the traditional sports game approach of “The Champion! just went through… A Table!”*

      Like almost everything AI? The key is to focus on creators’ rights and control what can and can’t be used as training data. Because the genie is out of the bottle and ain’t going back in. But if we can protect the rights of what goes into training data? Then people are still paid for their effort/creation.

      Of course, we also need UBI so that people’s lives aren’t tied to their jobs but that is a bigger mess.

      *: Also, if you don’t think those aren’t already stitched and blended together with most of the same tech then I have a bridge to sell you

      I’ll also add on that there are very good reasons to pay for models based on VAs. Brendan Fraser infamously permanently-ish hurt his vocal cords because of the performance that were expected of him in his prime. Same with a lot of VAs (I think David Hayter is one?) who basically need to smoke a pack a day when they are “in character” to get the right gravely voice. And while Stephanie Beatriz played it smart and made sure her “Rosa” voice was something she could maintain, a lot of actors and actresses basically can’t be the character they are famous for because it is killing them.

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  • VirtualOdour@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I love how upset people get about things like this

    Your coffee is made by enslaved children and people shrug

    Your clothes were made in a sweatshop and people shrug

    Your music is owned by corporate monsters who impose absurd copyright to steal culture from those that live in it and people shrug

    A theoretical voice actor misses out on a small role and you go wild calling for boycotts and making unhinged tweets at the company?

    Very weird priorities.

    Almost like it’s totally unserious and nothing but self Important performative nonsense.

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    • FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I feel like “The world sucks” is a poor argument for making it worse.

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    • UntitledQuitting@reddthat.com ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Almost like it’s totally unserious and nothing but self Important performative nonsense.

      This should be the new tagline for social media

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    • Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      It was crazy how swiftly media moved to present tons of reasons to hate AI.

      It really made me realize how the people with this strongest opinions have been given those opinions by media that they don’t even realize is a form of media.

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  • loo@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Still waiting for them to fix their game and not produce even more DLCs

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    • nutsack@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      what is broken in stellaris

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      • originalfrozenbanana@lemm.ee ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        My mid game builds 😢

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      • BombOmOm@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        From my experience, nothing. I’m not sure what the guy is complaining about.

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      • loo@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
        • They changed the keybindings without giving you the ability to edit keybindings yourself
        • The performance is bad
        • The game speed is linked to framerate and the longer your run is, the slower your game runs
        • The former point results in players in multiplayer getting kicked because of synchronization issues
        • Many minor bugs such as science ships getting trapped at one planet because they cant ever finish surveying them
        • DLCs being absolutely overpriced sometimes
        • Mechanics being absolutely unbalanced

        I bought the game on release and played the game for over 700 hours since and I had to witness many patches that introduced so many bugs

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      • cooljacob204@kbin.social ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Late game performance and dsyncs comes to mind.

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  • Cryophilia@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    we’re pretty good at exploring dystopian sci-fi and don’t want to end up there ourselves

    Image

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    • Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I always think its the other way around. Some author who spends too much time around college campuses writes a scary possibility about some topic that scared them but they don’t know a lot about. So like a book about a massive bedron impactor creates mini black holes that eats everything it touches. Book becomes popular and in ten years the LHC has some breakthrough but the zeitgeist was already established and people find all the reasons the cool ass tech is really going to be he worst thing ever.

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  • Mirodir@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I’m not really up-to-date on voice synthesis. Have we reached the point where we can get enough training data from just a handful of voice actors to train a model of this quality?

    Or is this a case of them using those voice actors for fine-tuning a pretrained model and just being quiet about that?

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    • Dremor@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      commonvoice.mozilla.org/fr

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      • ricdeh@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Why .fr lol?

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      • Mirodir@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Yeah, if Mozilla’s goal is 1200 clips/day and 2400 validations/day then I have a strong suspicion that Stellaris uses a pretrained model and there are no royalties for the people whose voices were used for the pretraining. Not that it would be feasible to spread royalties among that many people in the first place.

        What could point against that suspicion though is that Stellaris doesn’t need a “perfect” model so maybe they can get away with much, much less. After all the whole gimmick is that it is in-universe AI. A (near-)flawless model would be (near-)indistinguishable from a regular voice actor. Then there would’ve been no need to hire a bunch of voice actors to train an AI in the first place.

        Assuming that it is pretrained -> finetued though, the only hope is that those initial files were donated willingly and not scraped somewhere. Otherwise their “ethical” argument goes out the window.

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  • Hildegarde@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Have any of the involved voice actors confirmed the claims made in the article? I’ve seen multiple articles on this game, and the only quotes are from the game’s director.

    So far I’ve only seen one side claim this is ethical. That’s not enough.

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