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'AI is coming for all of us:' Mass Effect, Metal Gear Solid, and Baldur's Gate voice actor Jennifer Hale weighs in on SAG-AFTRA's games industry strike

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Submitted ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨Goronmon@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨games@lemmy.world⁩

https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/ai-is-coming-for-all-of-us-mass-effect-metal-gear-solid-and-baldur-s-gate-voice-actor-jennifer-hale-weighs-in-on-sag-aftra-s-games-industry-strike

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  • iconic_admin@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I hope not. Jennifer Hale is amazing. She’s the reason I’ve never played as male Shepard in mass effect. She also voiced Bastila in knights of the old republic. Incredible skill/talent.

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    • TheOctonaut@mander.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Do one maleshep run. I promise he has some great deliveries too.

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      • ichbinjasokreativ@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Right? Femshep is amazing, but people are sleeping on maleshep. ‘we’ll bang, okay?’

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      • zecg@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        How do you play through that tripe twice? It has next to no challenge and the story is beyond stupid.

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    • fine_sandy_bottom@lemmy.federate.cc ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I’m not really a gamer, but I listen to a lot of audiobooks.

      AI isn’t anywhere close to being able to replace “good” narrators. Maybe a bit like self driving cars - the first 90% was achieved rapidly, the next 5% took some doing but ok, now though the final 5% seems kinda unachievable on any timescale.

      That said, automation (and yes, AI) tends to approach industries incrementally. A headline voice actor isn’t going to be replaced tomorrow, but maybe some low level roles are. Fewer voice actors just means less demand for the really good ones. Def not good for the industry but… time marches on I guess.

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      • sneezycat@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        How do you think headline voice actors start? By doing the small roles like wallas, ad libs, waiter2 and such. If you get rid of the starting voice actors of today, you get rid of the good voice actors of tomorrow.

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      • jaggedrobotpubes@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Just a matter of time. You stop it categorically or you don’t stop it.

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    • aeronmelon@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      She was also a Spartan in Halo.

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      • CatsGoMOW@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        And Kyoshi and June in Avatar the Last Airbender.

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    • rbos@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      She did the Goblins webcomic animated trailer allng with Phil Lamarr! Super stoked for that.

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    • gerbler@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Hale is an incredible VA and she has had more roles than there are grains of sand.

      It’s also funny when she voices multiple characters in the same game like Killer Frost and Hawk Girl in Injustice.

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  • StrandedInTimeFall@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    The biggest thing companies want to do with AI is infinite cheap content. They want generate a movie or other entertainment for a 10th or even 20th of the cost while burning a state’s worth of energy. They’re going to try and generate a successful movie from models that are trained on previously successful movies. And, they’ll get it.

    At least at first. Eventually, even we’ll burn out from endless selection of predictable movies and other entertainment. And, I’m not talking just once a year. More like once a month. At some point, hopefully sooner rather than later, they’ll learn that the attention economy is not infinite. There is a limit of people, time, and money. They’re putting most of their eggs in the this basket and I hope it smashes to pieces.

    AI isn’t here to improve anything. It’s here to open a path to infinite growth. Infinite entertainment, infinite weaponizing, infinite whatever. More predictable, infinite growth. Problem with that is that we’re slowing as a race and sooner or later it will start shrinking. The more they try to take, the quicker this is going to happen.

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    • deafboy@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Sure. Let’s protect the proper culture. Like Fast and Furious 10, or the 60th marvel superhero movie rehash :P

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      • AWittyUsername@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Yeah modern “blockbuster” movies and “AAA” games might as well be AAi generated.

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    • p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      we’ll burn out from endless selection of predictable movies and other entertainment

      We aren’t already doing that? Even without AI, most of today’s writers suck ass, and corporate meddling has stomped out risk taking. Writers have no chance to build experience with good shows with longevity. With no risk, there is no creativity.

      All of the good series were ones from cable TV. Breaking Bad, Sopranos, old Star Trek, Mr. Robot, Babylon 5, House, Rick and Morty, Game of Thrones (even if it ended badly), Better Call Saul, The Expanse (which died immediately after it switched to Amazon), Gravity Falls. About the only streaming series I really enjoyed was Loki, and that only lasted two seasons. Anything else might have a good first season, but they chop out any sense of character development by making these season 6-8 episodes long. No episodic content. No character development. Just go go go towards the seasonal end goal. And then get cancelled, because they didn’t get a chance to shake out the mediocre ideas and improve their direction. Can you imagine Star Trek:TNG being represented by only their first season, and then cancelled as a result of that?

      All of the recent good movies were from directors that had a chance to take risks back in the 2000s, and are now given full creative control to do what they are good at. Dune was a great movie, but it simply adapted the source material, and was given enough budget and resources and creative control to Denis to produce what it needed to be. How many good directors will be left when the old guard retires?

      All of the good games are from indie series now. Concord is being getting review-wrecked and shat on, while people focus more of their attention on an fucking asset-flip game about a squirrel with a gun. All of the good bigger studios are gone, fully absorbed into the Microsoft/ZeniMax/WB/EA empire. Only the first or second-time indie game developers are the ones producing good games.

      Hell, at this point, maybe AI would do a better job than the shit that’s out there. I doubt it, though. It’s too half-baked right now.

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    • uranibaba@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I am waiting for an AI model and corresponding tools to generate my own anime and manga. No more stupid open endings, no more infinite story they stop producing because who knows, no more “I was in the same room as a girl, OH NO! Someone might have seen me, I’m so embarrassed!”.

      I almost wish I could take existing anime, put it in a machine and make it better. That should actually become a thing, use AI to make your favorite TV shower more to your liking. Someone needs to create this. Bad ending? Fix that. Bad dialog? Fix that. Change gender on all characters? Fix that as well. Foul langage? Easy.

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  • Nuke_the_whales@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    That’s good. A game can’t hold an unlimited amount of NPC interactions, and just get repetitive. Ai isn’t taking your job if it’s not possible for you to give me endless dialogue.

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    • KeenFlame@feddit.nu ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Idk why you are downvoted. It’s sad, tragic even, but your comment is interesting and I wanna know how you think about generated content. Do you want infinite immersion?

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      • MajorHavoc@programming.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Idk why you are downvoted.

        Calling unions “legacy institutions” is a dangerous take that will get some of our kids or grandkids killed in coal mines.

        I’ll admit my kids aren’t perfect, but they deserve better than to be victims of the current blatant strategic communications agenda to turn their kids into stage slaves at age 8.

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      • Nuke_the_whales@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        I just feel that you can’t say a machine is replacing you, when it’s doing something you’re not capable of, which is to provide infinite, responsive responses and dialogue. I’m not saying these voice actors aren’t needed or should be screwed over. Why not dialogue a character, pay the actor, and ai can generate the infinite responses. Pay the actor a premium for this.

        Ai I can also see being great for NPC and enemy reactions.

        I remember playing Manhunt back in the day and being intrigued by the ability to use my mic to distract enemies, and some games that let you respond by mic, and I hoped that would go somewhere but it can’t, not without Ai.

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  • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Idk. Like, I’m sure some of you have seen the most recent gen-AI stuff, but its like, un-fucking-canny.

    I don’t know where this all goes, but its happening so fast, I’m sure legacy institutions like unions are going to struggle to keep up.

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    • GBU_28@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Yep. Imagine 10 full years from now. Not long in the span of a career.

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      • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        10 years? Bruh 10 months. I saw some stuff recently that was image gen, and there is not a fucking chance I would be able to say it was or wasn’t generated. Like I do some aspects of this shit for a living and I’m fucked.

        Code generation, image and video generation, voxel generation, voice generation.

        We’re fucked. This is like, seeing the iceberg in that minute before it hits on the titantic.

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  • CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    99% sure she voiced McGinnus in Deadlock.

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    • MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Really? I know her range is kind of insane but I don’t hear Hale in McGinnis at all.

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      • CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Maybe you’re right, I did play a LOT of Apex so maybe my brain misfired on this one, but I was playing Deadlock the other day and one of McGinnus’ lines instantly made me think “Damn, that was Commander Shepard!” I’ll have to listen closer next time I play and see if it’s really Bangalore I’m hearing.

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  • Buttflapper@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    The only protection we could possibly have HAS to be implemented by the government, look how Germany handles their workforce. They have a worker’s council, you can’t just lay off people or fire tons of people nope. Workers are protected. Here in the USA, people are just servants, building pyramids, and then tossed to the street.

    My idea: if a company employs over 50 employees, it should be ILLEGAL to outsource any job overseas, or replace them with AI. Example, voice actors. Should not be legal. Small studios / indie, should be perfectly legal since these are individuals that struggle to get started.

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    • frezik@midwest.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Unions can organize without the government having any protections. It’s very difficult to organize that way. It’s difficult to organize even with the most union-friendly government imaginable. But either way, it can be done.

      Unions in the US have been shot by police at before. Hard to have less government protection than that.

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    • Adalast@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Your idea is one of the specific reasons many companies try to label everyone as an “independent contractor”. Especially people like voice actors are not “employees”, and thus do not count as such for your idea.

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      • Buttflapper@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Yeah, and unions would change that. Negotiating to ensure that people are hired as full-time employees with benefits, not as independent contractors or consultants with no rights, and finally be treated as human beings.

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  • JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Is it the voice that makes the character, though? Can I take any middle aged Stanley type from the office and get the ai to place the voice as the next Taylor swift? Is it then actually the original character/ actor? Why not just synthesize the looks according to whatever teenage adolescent fantasy the marketing department wants and fully program the character, i.e. a fully artificial actor, instead of basing it off some persons looks? The former cannot possibly have legal repercussions, but if the latter, by all means, protect the actors rights and likeness from abuse.

    I think the studios still need the actors to perform the characters, because the ais can’t emote. But once they can, it’s over for the actors

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  • JayEchoRay@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Disppointed there are no insert

    Greedy Corpo:

    “Aah yes, 👐 A.I. 👐 we have dismissed those claims”

    Jokes aside, at least in regards to Mass Effect both voice actors bring something to the game for me

    Although, I admit female shepard is consistently better throughout the triology, male shepard has his charm as Mark Meer improved on his performance throughout the trilogy. The human element can do much to elevate a weaker performance and in its own way leave a stronger impact, at least for me.

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    • morbidcactus@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      While I like Mark Meer for his voice work in other Bioware games (Jade Empire for sure, also I don’t dislike maleshep at all) and his work on stuff like the irrelevant show, Jennifer Hale is just fantastic to the point where renegade femshep is to me the cannon version of Shepard

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      • JayEchoRay@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        That is fair, I prefer renegade femshep as well. Jennifer Hale, for me, does her renegade lines with more menace and she carries authority better.

        Male Shepard, I feel, does the vulnerable moments well, especially in 3… maybe it is a bias in the display of male lead vulnerability. I feel like Mark Meer does the more meme-worthy comedic moments better.

        Generally I lean towards light hearted paragon MaleShep and badass renegade FemShep on voice preferance

        Jade Empire, takes me back. Great game and had a nice morality system that effected how your character developed with skills and how the playable character interacted with the world and how it had a strong effect on type the ending that would play out.

        Also thank you for the link, will have a look

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    • Wogi@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      The Elcor are really where the series shines for depth of acting.

      Emotional; this was my favorite game series for a long time. Excited; hopefully the upcoming one will live up to the series’ name.

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      • JayEchoRay@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        To be fair the greatness of experiencing Elcor Hamlet was intended to be seen through his actions not emotions.

        [Regretfully and with much sorrow] One cannot truly experience it in its 14 hour splendour

        [Restrained Optimism and sadness] It will be a different game considering the people behind it and the aftermath of the trilogy. [Wistful Contentment] Having the next Mass Effect have some grounded world building and, if need be, mix elements to a compromise of old and new

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  • Jimmycakes@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Voice work as a career is dead. The genie is not going back in the bottle. Games can now have substantially more dialog, so the end product will be better and cheaper for the studios.

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    • scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I don’t think it’s dead. As it is it is going to evolve, not die.

      Primary roles will be acted, that won’t go away. It’s too noticeable when it’s not a real actor when you’re with your pal for 120 hours. Johnny Silverhand or Garrus Vikarian would be jarring not having a real human.

      NPCs, however, I worry about. Those random interactions I see contracts changing, where actors will have to give rights to train on their voice, where some key moments may be spoken the the rest is regenerated.

      AI isn’t magic, and there are some real pitfalls around it. It can get pretty close, but someone who is paying attention will always notice.

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    • Couldbealeotard@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Cheaper? yes. better? No. LLMs produce the most derivative inane BS that it would just act as filler. In classic RPGs and adventure games a lot of the filler dialogue was one line per NPC to represent a microcosm within a location. There’s nothing to be gained from theoretically infinite NPCs with theoretically infinite lines of pointless dialogue.

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  • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Yes, we should prepare for the coming of AI. However, we overestimated the rate of AI development. Iirc 80% of investors lost money from investing in AI companies because the technology is not up to scratch yet. I mean, how many people asked something from ChatGPT and gave you wrong answers frequently?

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    • shasta@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      As a general intelligence tool yeah it’s not good. But for gemerating art or replicating voices, it’s much more usable, especially when you can spend some time tweaking it a bit or making small changes to the output to get close enough to what you want. If that process is cheaper than hiring real people for the job (or if it’s faster) that’s going to be a huge motivator for producers to cut jobs.

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  • TotalCasual@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I have sympathy for voice actors, the situation is obviously complex for them. But, and I’ve said this numerous times to numerous people, AI voice work is probably going to end up being cheaper and much more voluminous. That’s exactly what developers need for procedurally generated games where they want to see “all” of the characters voiced.

    I’m not saying anyone should try to use AI to voice main characters in standard video games. However, this isn’t about standard video games.

    The fact is, mass voice work in procedurally generated games is something that can only ever be accomplished with AI.

    The whole Rogue-like genre is constantly evolving. And yeah, a lot of the development is bad. If you’re in that scene, you probably know what I’m talking about - lots of dead end projects, lots of pointless feature sets, lots of pointless busywork being disguised as game mechanics, slot machine nonsense, etc, ad nauseam. Nonetheless, AI generated voice work is obviously going to be used there at some point.

    I have a hard time believing that a lot of people are going to lose their jobs to AI voice work. The voice work generated through AI is not comparable to what people can do. Again, that isn’t the issue. The economy is in the dumps, and AI is the only way to afford voice work for games that are designed around procedurally generated voice work.

    You can be upset at losing your job. But, throwing a wrench at a wrench because you think the wrench is screwing you, is just stupid. Corporations might screw you. But, the technology itself is just technology.

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    • hikaru755@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Congrats, you completely missed the point. Maybe read the actual article, before going on a rant that’s only tangentially related?

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      • TotalCasual@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        No, I know what the article is. I’m talking about the conversation of AI voice work in general as tangential to the topic.

        Maybe don’t be so presumptive or act like an indecent asshole to people just because they aren’t parroting the same shit you are?

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  • xenoclast@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I think reasonable people know it won’t work like that and ultimately you can’t make this stuff without humans.

    The real answer is remembering that ALL of this stuff, even the farms full of AI running Nvidia cards are RUN BY HUMANS.

    The “means of production” (I’m sure that won’t piss brigaders off) is still controllable by the masses.

    Like wake the fuck up. Either you sleep walk into a few decades long mess of boring LLM stuff and destroyed commercial art. Or you form unions at every level.

    Right from the power company that cuts power to poor areas to power server farms or the developers at EA writing the pipelines for LLM training.

    Every single group needs to say no or stop or whatever.

    It’s totally possible. Anyone that tells you differently is stealing from you and destroying your future.

    cwa-union.org here’s one to start…

    Anyone one of you reading this that could get affected by this (can’t think of anyone who isn’t honestly) needs to stop and take 20 mins to find something to do about it, or your just complicit by inaction. (And a coward in my book)

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  • Anti_Face_Weapon@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Honestly an AI voice might be better than the male commander Shepard voice. That game is such slop.

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    • Rakonat@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I’m Commander Shepard, and this is the dumbest comment on Lemmy not to come out of .ml

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    • Wogi@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I’m commander Shepard and this is my least favorite comment on Lemmy

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