Voice Actors Join Protest Against AI at Comic Con 2023

Voice actors are also rising against AI.

Members of the National Association of Voice Actors (NAVA) went to the recent San Diego Comic Con to discuss its opposition to the use of generative AI in Hollywood

The Screen Actors Guild - American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) previously announced it is going on strike following Hollywood's "groundbreaking" AI proposal, which seeks to replace background actors with digital copies of themselves.

Real, Human Voices For Entertainment

2023's San Diego Comic Con is more than a place for the world's geeks to gather and revel in all things pop media. According to a Gizmodo report, a panel of NAVA members held a press conference regarding the voice acting industry's concerns with generative AI.

The panel consists of Linsay Rousseau (God of War: Ragnarok), Ashly Burch (Mythic Quest), Cissy Jones (The Owl House), Zeke Alton (Call of Duty), and NAVA president and founder Tim Friedlander (Record of Ragnarok).

While most of the panel members did not hold any prominent role in the games they voiced in, they are present and credited for their work.

Among the panel is SAG-AFTRA leader Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, who said that the entertainment industry must reject the idea that AI is "something that's going to happen to us [actors], and we can't say anything about it."

He added that while Hollywood actors can reject the idea, the question of actors rejecting it is still debatable.

The panel primarily discussed how to mitigate the concerns of allowing AI to generate voice lines actors didn't agree or consent to read. Friedlander mentioned that while he and other voice actors can refuse to read certain lines, the rise of AI meant that they lost control over what their voices could say, per Variety.

Interestingly enough, Crebtree-Ireland likens the situation to a scene in that one story about a sea witch stealing a mermaid's voice and using it for whatever, describing the similarities to it with AI as "horrifying."

"As an actor, you need to know what they're going to do with some digital version of you that they're creating using AI, not in general," Crabtree-Ireland continued.

As a result, the voice actors in the panel talked about putting talent first provisions in contracts, guaranteeing that any AI was used alongside voice actors and would also include provisions for appropriate compensation.

"I don't want the next generation of voice actors to not have the potential to build a life that we've been able to build in this business," Burch said.

SAG-AFTRA Protest

NAVA's protest against generative AI is the latest in the entertainment industry's push against it. You may remember that SAG-AFTRA previously announced it is going on strike to prevent background actors from having their likeness digitized and getting nothing for having it used in future movies without their consent.

To be specific, the Alliance of Motion Picture of Television Producers (AMPTP) wants to have the likeness of background actors scanned, get one day's pay, and possibly never work again. Hollywood would then use the scan for the rest of eternity in any project without consent and compensation - the latest development in Hollywood's trend of using technology to de-age, resurrect, and even fully replace actors in films.

This protest is the first SAG-AFTRA had alongside the Writer's Guild of America since the 1960s.