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I am abandoning Arc Raiders because Embark is stealing voices through AI (www.youtube.com)
submitted 10 months ago by to c/games@lemmy.world
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/40224994

I just found out that Embark used genAI to replace recalling it's voice actors. And I am devastated. It was my GOTY and now I'm boycotting it. To the point that I decided to be vocal about it.

I don't want any AI (not talking about machine learning for the way the Arcs move, I'm talking about the voice actors being replaced) in the work of art that I think are the video games I play.

To game developers: Stop using AI in your video games!

Je viens de découvrir que Embark a utilisé de l'IA générative pour remplacer ses acteurs. Et franchement je suis tellement déçu. C'était clairement mon GOTY, et maintenant je me retrouve à boycotter tout ça, au point de carrément en faire des posts pour toucher le plus de monde possible.

Je ne veux aucune IA (et attention, je ne parle pas du machine learning utilisé pour les déplacements des Arcs) dans les oeuvres d'art que je consomme.

Aux développeurs: Arrêtez d'utiliser de l'IA dans les jeux vidéos !

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[–] 66 points 10 months ago (11 children)

Stealing? They paid the voice actors to train the model, everyone consented. What do you think stealing is?

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  • [–] 13 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    The job offer would read "Let us use your voice to train an AI to replace you, and if you say no, we'll hire someone else who will." Most actors are highly replaceable, so they have very little bargaining power. This is why actors have unions and why they've been fighting AI hard.

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  • [–] 5 points 10 months ago* (2 children)

    I’m admittedly ignorant of all of this, but I’ll post my thoughts anyway:

    If the AI is trained on their voice and that AI is available to other studios (like leasing or buying it from the original company), the one time payment for that actor’s work is a very very shit deal. They’re out of a job in multiple places or for multiple works now since it can be reused for many things.

    I doubt that the contract says it’s only used for that one singular project. Companies are sneaky. However, I have not read said contracts so it’s a magical guess on my part.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago

    I also hope Embark do the right thing and get VAs back in to voice quests and cut scenes.
    Use the generated voice for items and locations only. Maybe, as an emergency, for continuity.

    I guess it gives them unbelievable leverage over the VAs: "We are offering you $10 to do 4 hours of voice lines. Or we will just use the model we have already trained".
    Which then puts even more downwards pressure on VA wages.

    I bet Embark has made bank, and it would be a massive PR win to get the VAs back in at an industry standard rate to do the quests and cutscenes.

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  • [–] [S] -5 points 10 months ago (6 children)

    Stealing might be a strong word, I agree. But because of this policy, Embark won't need another recording session out of these actors. Designing the project to never pay the actors that could have worked with them again.

    To back this term ("stealing"). I consider that the genAI technology as a whole has been built on the stolen work of the whole world. ChatGPT has been built upon thousands of Github projects without their consent, I suppose Sora, DALL-E, Stable Diffusion, etc have been made in the same way. Training data has been stolen.

    Even though it's a bit far-stretched, using this kind of technology to remove any future human collaboration is stealing to me.

    • Stealing (copying) their voice (in the Little Mermaid way)
    • Stealing their money (make profit with their unique trait in the future)
    • Stealing the work of thousand if not million of people around the world through the genAI technology
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  • [–] 25 points 10 months ago (4 children)

    It’s not just a “strong word”, it’s incorrect. At most, these platforms are built on copyright infringement, which is not theft. And in this case, it’s not even copyright infringement since they hired a voice actor

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