With advances in AI tools seemingly growing every day, voice actors are understandably concerned about the tech’s future use in video games.
Joseph Balderrama is a proficient British actor whose on-screen credits include such blockbuster cinema as The Batman, Spectre and even 2022’s Uncharted adaptation. He’s no stranger to video game voice acting either, lending his tones to hits like turn-based Nintendo RPG Live A Live, and breakout co-op action-adventure It Takes Two as shrunken-down husband Cody.
His latest role is in top-down dungeon crawler Diablo 4, in which he plays the oh-so stoic Male Sorcerer class. The game is launching at a time when industry is abuzz with the progressions of AI, and Balderrama weighed in with his stance on the new technology and its ramifications for voice actors.
Just to clarify, the team at Activision Blizzard doesn’t appear to be using AI for vocal performances in Diablo 4. But with the likes of High on Life and other AAA games using AI tools to aid in scripting and temp dialogue, I can’t help but feel like Balderrama and his fellow artists are somewhat justified in their concern (via Sky News).
“Speaking entirely personally, I’m terrified about it,” says Balderrama. “I think it’s a very dangerous road that is being travelled and I personally don’t see how there is any benefit to actors, to artists [and] to creatives other than saving corporations money.” In addition to risking voice actors livelihoods, it’s what else will be lost that primarily concerns him.
“What you are risking is losing human identity, and that’s something that’s at the core of being alive.”
Appetite for destruction
You just need to look to social media for anecdotes about AI and its utilisation across a broad swathe of industries and professions, be they positive or negative. Those against it paint a grim picture of the consequences that could befall society; Balderrama is firmly among them.
“It’s kind of akin to the scientists who worked on the atomic bomb if you want my honest opinion,” he says. “If you eliminate swathes of people’s ability to have income, you eliminate swathes of people’s ability to purchase stuff. It’s totally self-destructive.” Like a lot of us, he struggles to see how it benefits society, let alone video games. “I can’t see how it’s going to end well.”
Voice acting in video games isn’t the only sector potentially set to be affected by advancements in AI, of course. Just recently Dr Geoffrey Hinton, widely known as the ‘Godfather of AI’, quit his job at Google in order to dedicate his full time to warn people and companies of the technology’s dangers.
On a lighter note, Balderrama does suggest a good avenue in which AI could be used positively: “The only people I think it could be applied to well is referees in football," he chuckles.
