Protections for game voice actors fall under a separate SAG-AFTRA contract for interactive work — striking actors can still do voice work for games — but that contract, negotiated in 2017, did not include AI.
Voice actors — in gaming and beyond — need to protect themselves from AI, Passoja said, because repurposing his likeness in “Call of Duty” was “completely unethical, completely immoral, and yet completely within the bounds of my contract.” A performer’s “product” — their face, voice and movement — should be digitally watermarked and digitally tracked, he said, so actors can be fairly compensated when that product is used.
Voice actors have recently noticed audio from video games being stripped and modified, and placed on websites to either be put into other games or to perform lines that the actor wouldn’t say. Julia Bianco Schoeffling, chief operating officer and casting director at the Halp Network, which connects clients with onscreen and offscreen talent, said that AI is a powerful tool as long as it doesn’t replace human performance.
Because the depth of narratives varies across game genres, the amount of work that goes into voicing a lengthy role-playing title may differ from the time spent recording lines for a shooting game, said voice actor Grace Rolek. “I think that having some sort of consistent standard across the industry is really important, especially for something like AI that is only going to get better,” said Rolek. “It’s not quite there yet to be like, ‘Oh, can you have a breath in between words?’ Or ‘can you put the stress on this word instead of that word?’ But I do feel like that’s only a matter of time.”