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 !
I mean, it’s a garbage game so, any reason to not play it I guess.
Ah, yes, ragebait on lemmy. How fabulous.
Really appreciate you bringing awareness and expressing concern on this, as it has the potential to abuse artists. Folks seem quick to handwave it away instead of taking the measured, thoughtful approach it deserves. Artists need to be protected first and foremost.
I installed Arc Raiders from my family sharing group, fired it up then closed it and uninstalled it as soon as it says I need to create YET ANOTHER account just to play this game.
I’m done creating an account for every single game.
Yep. I wish others were brave enough to actually make a change. Accounts are purely there to steal data and further enrich thieves.
And beyond that, they’re just uselessly annoying for consumers
they aren’t “stealing” from actors, you twit. the voice actors were hired to make the “AI” voices. in reality it’s not even AI, it’s a text-to-speech system and voice modulator, for those who want to use the raider voice for VOIP because they don’t want people hearing their voice. like women, for example, who don’t want to be harassed by incels for daring to play an FPS. and for disabled people who can’t use their own voice. idk you hate accessibility features, but you should maybe take a hard look on why you think life should be harder for people just to fit your own twisted morality.
First, please stay civil. I didn’t insult you. Don’t insult me.
Secondly I mark the difference between the accessibility feature of voice changer and the voice lines that could have been 100% recorded by a professional voice actor to begin with.
Because in the second case, this is just cost-cutting in order to maximise profit on the back of voice actors imho.
Marketing this as “text-to-speech” is oversimplyfying at best, dishonest at worst. People need to work, we can’t blame the voice actors. But in the end they still are working against themselves/their peers by allowing corporations/studios to copy their unique features to prevent working with them in the future.
I’m glad we’ll always have liberals to tell us what we should be outraged about. instead of asking those VA whether or not they’re offended by what they agreed to, you’ve stolen their voice and declared yourself the arbiter of what they should feel. you’ve decided your opinion is more important than theirs. what sort of narcissistic outrage farming junkie does that? where do you get off, stealing the voice from others who can speak for themselves?
As much as I agree with your argument over OP’s, the unnecessary name calling has reduced it to nothing more than a tantrum.
you sound 900 years old
it looks like you’re saying I sound mature and wise, so thank you!
more like if lead could type.
I’d say you need to work on your insults, but judging from your post history, you’ve already peaked in that regard.
go back as far as you need to, you might learn something.
Zing!
(I’m writing that down for future use - hope that’s ok)
it is. copyright is capitalist bullshit, you can copy anything anyone says because they can’t own ideas.
Watkins, speaking to PCGamesN, elaborated that the text-to-speech always starts with a voice actor: “It’s part of their contract that we use it [AI] for this purpose, and that allows us to do things like our ping system, where it’s capable of saying every single item name, every single location name, and compass directions. That’s how we can get that without needing to have someone come in every time we create a new item for the game.”
So no, they are not “stealing” voices. Their contracts explicity states that they are training the model. So they are getting paid, which in conclusion rules out “stealing”.
Also, from your video:
But to my understanding
Rarely ever good if a sentence starts with “To my understanding”
the AI tools Embark uses to then synthesize the rest of the performance come from models that are trained on millions of other voice actors that have been stolen from in the way that all generative AI models steal from artists.
No, that’s the whole point of models that are trained on a single voice - you do NOT use other voice actors because that would completely muddy the voice. The models are trained on a singular voice to mimic that person perfectly. Using other voices is like asking someone to cook a potato soup for you and then you toss in tomato and paprika.
AI is a tool, and a good one if it’s used properly. And this is definitely a good use case.
If you really want to make a point against AI, stop using windows as they are trying to push AI bullshit into everything.
Thank you for the sourced answer.
First of all, I’m not the author of the video. I’m only a concerned customer/fan.
Secondly, I am already boycotting Windows for those kind of reason. And I have been a Linux user for the better part of the last 10 years. You are right, we should fight this kind of stance. But this is a different beast imho.
Now to answer: I will copy/paste most of my answer to kate above.
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.
I find this really cynical. Because:
Embark has made millions, if not more on this game. Don’t tell me they HAD to use genAI instead of paying those voice actors for reshoot to begin with.
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
I personally do understand how genAI work. But thank you for clarifying what is usually a black box for most people. Let me phrase in detail what my understanding is. And feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.
What Embark did is to train a specific model on a specific voice. I agree.
But the base of this model is to be capable of understanding how any voice works in order to copy how a specific voice work. In other words. This means that the technology/model has first been built using thousands of recordings to “understand” how human voice works. And then there has been a last layer to copy a specific voice.
I am simplifying of course. But I want to express how much I am disagreeing with the “they only used one specific voice”. Technology isn’t magic, we as a society don’t understand how to make a program that can copy a single voice to make it say anything perfectly.
We can use an amalgam of thousands of them to build a neural network (what some call AI, it is a broad term often used to describe Machine Learning) to statistically mimic what a human voice is. And then feed it a single voice to mimic.
Sorry for the long response.
I have played enough games that have lasted enough time to know that it’s not uncommon to be unable to get a voice actor to come back for many reasons up to and including death or retirement. Which results in worse experiences for the player because now there’s just a sudden voice change which is unpleasant. Or your developers are now limited because of scheduling another issues which causes problems.
For them to be able to have a consistent voice throughout without having to rely on that in the voice, actor only has to do a one-time gig get paid in the potentially earn a small annual stipend from the project depending on their contract.
Genai for voices is really really good in that case. You can sell the use of your voice to train a model for a small lump sum with a yearly licensing fee or a large up front sum.
Easier in a more reliable paycheck for the voice actor. As long as the contract is fair and compensation is done correctly and the licensing is on a strictly project by project basis. So no using that trained AI from multiple projects.
Like this is probably the single best example of using genai that we can really hope for. It could be a slight bit better. Sure, but this is already leaps and bounds ahead of anything else.
Bespoke case by case trained AI with contractual agreements for payment in licensing.
And the best part of all of this since it’s contractually agreed, it means no one is forced to do s***
Don’t tell me they HAD to use genAI instead of paying those voice actors for reshoot to begin with.
The didn’t have to, but it certainly makes it easier. And I find it silly to not use a technology that makes something easier if you have it available. That’s like a farmer plowing his field by hand instead of using a tractor.
But the base of this model is to be capable of understanding how any voice works in order to copy how a specific voice work.
First of all, we had Text-To-Speech way before any kind of generative AI. In germany, we had speech synthesized announcements on railway stations for like 15 years at least. Like this here: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/AuIkJ_UGltI. We also had vocaloids for decades now. So it’s wrong to assume we had no idea how voices work before AI.
Second, I get your stance on “I’m not using AI because somewhere up the chain it was developed by morally ambiguous ways”, but I don’t think that makes anything better. You should rate the current use-case, not something that happened earlier in the production chain. AI in itself is not bad. If used properly, it’s an incredibly helpful tool. There’s other and much better hills to die on imo.
Stop trying to reason with this person.
You can’t reason someone out of a position they did not reason themselves into.
There are many legitimate complaints with ai. And when you confront its most fervent detractors with examples of the technology that addresses these complaints they just double down on their hatred of it, which is not an intellectually honest position to take.
If you have a problem with a model that’s been trained on the work of many artists that haven’t been compensated, then you should be okay with a model that has been trained on data for which an artist has been fairly compensated.
If you take issue with the huge power usage for training LLMs then you should be okay with a model that has been trained in such a manner that the huge power usage of LLMs does not apply (many voice models are really fucking lightweight).
Many of the complaints people have are salient, but when someone doubles down when the complaints are addressed it’s abundantly clear that the issue is “I hate this” and not “I hate this because”
To follow your analogy:
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“The tractor isn’t made off of other people living wage” is what I was starting to answer but… it does a bit, so you are right in a sense. Previously, people where hired to plow the field I guess. And I don’t see this as big of a problem as genAI. But this subject touches more on mass production and capitalism.
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I would like to intentionally bend your analogy by stating that it’s not inherently true: if anybody could access a technology that helps them by magically destroying lives in another country far away, would you say the same thing? “It would be silly to ignore it as it makes things easier for me” seems quite short-sighted to me.
if anybody could access a technology that helps them by magically destroying lives in another country far away, would you say the same thing?
Might be cruel to say it, but that’s called “progress”. The world needs to continue to evolve - latching to old jobs seems silly. We got rid off of blacksmiths because we don’t have the need anymore. Europe once had a huge horse stable industry spanning the entirety of central and western europe. We don’t have that anymore either, because we now have cars. We also don’t have any telegraph operators or switchboard operators (necessary for long distance communication back then), elevator operators or laundry washwomen - these jobs have all been made obsolete by technical advancements.
“It would be silly to ignore it as it makes things easier for me” seems quite short-sighted to me.
I think quite the opposite - it’s the long-sighted better option. Progress is never good for those negatively affected in the short term, but we can’t keep jobs around that aren’t really necessary anymore just for the sake of those people having a job.
And in this particular case, there’s not even any loss involved. They used their voice to train an AI, it was explicity part of the contract and they got paid for it. I honestly do not see the problem.
You’re already using something convenient to you at the cost of exploiting other lives far away. It’s your smartphone.
You are right. Now, should we then condone any kind because we condone one? It might be hypocritical to condone one and not the other. But I prefer to chose my fights instead of going for none.
True, but there are far better things to fight when it comes to AI then companies that properly make contracts with voice actors to use their voice for AI training.
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Stealing? They paid the voice actors to train the model, everyone consented. What do you think stealing is?
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.
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
I’d say it’s piracy. The same thing some people went to prison for back in the days when dowloading music from p2p.
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
Voice models are not LLMs.
did you reply to the wrong comment?
I did not.
It’s an addendum to what you’re saying not a rebuttal.
Before GenAI, the “copyright infringement is theft” argument was super pro-corpo. It’s the same argument that huge media conglomerates used when they said they lost $X to piracy
But its in agreement with the voice actors. I don’t get the big deal. I’m not pro AI but why would you abandon a game you enjoy for that reason? Praise them for making an Unreal engine game that looks and runs great.
If SAG hadn’t gone on strike, Netflix would also have been making agreements with actors to use their voice and likeness without actually offering future work too. Was SAG wrong to push against this?
Just because someone makes a deal doesn’t mean it isn’t a toxic business practice that’s bad for the industry or the people involved in it. People also agree to work for subpar wages, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t push for higher minimum wages.
While i think it sucks, and the only reason they take this weird approach is that the embark guy is a turbo AI bro. What i don’t understand why they even bother, since arc raiders has only like 10 voice lines
Because desperate voice actors famously have so much leverage in contract negotiations, right? Why do you think Hollywood actors and writers unions went on strike in 2023?
I agree, this game has an awesome tech team making a clear counter-argument to UE5 haters (I hate UE5, they used very well imho). The graphism are cool and the art is really a work of art! I love the world design, lore, color grading, design-language, weapon design, etc.
The voice acting got through what I consider my keen 6th sense of AI-detection (which scares me tbh). But this is something that I cannot let go, I don’t want to. Even though everything else is (for a multiplayer game) top-notch imo.
What’s the boundary if we let them do this to one aspect of the game then? What amount of AI slop are we going to accept in the future if we allow corporations to AI-creep into everything?
I want to vote with my wallet and with my voice to support what I think isn’t the right direction.
Even though the voice actors signed the contract: I, as a customer/fan, don’t want workers signing off their ability to work more. These voice actors won’t ever work again with Embark now, Embark don’t need another recording session from them. Ok, actors waved that opportunity away willingly. But I don’t want the whole industry to become like this.
It’s not because the genAI trend isn’t going away that we aren’t allowed to adapt to it. My adaptation is to fight for an AI-free label.
PS: On another front, Embark has made millions, if not more on this game. Don’t tell me they HAD to use genAI instead of paying those voice actors for reshoot to begin with.
I love the dev behind ARC Raiders. I hate the management team that forced AI into the project (I can’t prove this claim, call that a hunch)
But this is something that I cannot let go, I don’t want to.
that’s too bad, considering most people are looking at this with a rational mind and don’t agree with you, and you have no ability to change it by yourself.
The reason I’ve heard they are doing it so they can pump out dialoge faster and they don’t have to let the voice actors come in for every line whenever they add a new map with new way points for example.
If its purely for the sake of velocity, than the performers should be compensated the same as if they were in studio. This is a slippery slope.
I understand that this would be costly. But imho this isn’t a good reason. There is imo only two ethic ways to solve this kind of problem:
- Understand that the goal is too hard to handle. Abandon the voice acting on the ping system.
- Put the means, even if this is costly*
*: As I said, Embark is a big company, they made millions of dollars. They can afford it. It is absurd to me to allow such a big structure to “cut costs” by removing the human factors.
There is imo only two ethic ways
well, ethics aren’t subjective, morals are. and there’s nothing unethical about what they’re doing here.
It seems to me you are playing with words. Pilaging all internet resources to create and profit on genAI isn’t unethical to you?
Independent artists have found evidence that their work has been scraped to train most of big genAI tools for years now. That’s A-OK for you?
first of all, yes. I’m an anarchist, I don’t believe in copyright, it’s capitalist bullshit. you can’t own ideas. anything you create is as much mine as it is yours, and I’ll use it for whatever purposes I want with or without your permission.
second, this isn’t genAI, it’s no different than the text-to-speech system that’s been in use in PC for decades. don’t come in here moaning about genAI when you don’t even know what the system you’re talking about even is.
don’t feed the troll they say…
Do you know the specifics of their contracts with the VA-s? Are you certain they’re not paying the VA-s for using their voice (even if it is AI generated)? What is the ethical dilemma if VA-s are getting paid whenever a new voiceline is created?
I don’t know the details. And I agree that if every line generated with their voice is paid (at least partially) I don’t see as big of a problem as I stated.
But call me cynical: I don’t think they were paid for generated voice lines. I would gladly be corrected on this matter though.
That was the case with The Finals (Embark’s previous game) according to testimony by the team, and they are using the same development practices here.
the voice actors were paid to create the text-to-speech system, yes. that was why they were hired in the first place.
Marketing this as “text-to-speech” is oversimplyfying at best, dishonest at worst imho. People need to work, we can’t blame the voice actors. But in the end they still are working against themselves/their peers.
Marketing this as “text-to-speech” is oversimplyfying at best, dishonest at worst imho.
it is literally a text-to-speech system. saying otherwise is just ignorant.
But are they also getting paid after the fact? Let’s say $50 any time a new voiceline is added to the game using their voice. Because Embark is using a tool to do the work someone would’ve done manually, they would’ve had to pay the person otherwise so I think a royalty-like payment any time the VA voice is used is completely fair. Otherwise it becomes what people are complaining about, that they’re effectively paying a one time fee for the VA voice and then use it for free for forever.
they’re effectively paying a one time fee for the VA voice and then use it for free for forever.
yes, that’s what they agreed to and were paid for. and that’s perfectly fine, they weren’t duped and had no issues with it, so even the flimsy moral outrage people come up with over supposed rights to things they create doesn’t apply.
I’m not here to argue with you. I dont mind them using Ai. They are upfront about it. You should do whatever you think is the right thing.
Sorry if I sounded angry or something. My goal is to debate around this subject I feel passionate about. I’m not really sure I would call all of this “being upfront” but that may be another subject.
I’m not an English native, so my words could be harsher that it should. Sorry again.
And thank you for answering and participating about the whole thing. No hard feelings I hope!
