Earlier this week, you might have seen the abomination that was an AI-powered version of Horizon series protagonist Aloy. It came as part of a leak that showed Sony experimenting with the ability to chat to video game characters that use OpenAI and Chat-GPT to respond, though Sony quickly saw to scrubbing any evidence of footage using the power of copyright laws. Notably the voice behind this AI version of Aloy was not that of her voice actor’s, Ashly Burch, but the voice actor has offered up her own thoughts on the whole situation.
Quite quickly in the video Burch shared to TikTok, she explained that developer Guerilla had contacted her to claim that the “demo didn’t reflect anything that was actively in development”, and importantly didn’t use any of her vocal or facial performance. Even with that, Burch did still say she feels “worried”, not about “Guerrilla specifically, or Horizon, or my performance, or my career specifically, even. I feel worried about this art form. Game performance as an art form.”
As Burch points out, The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) is still currently on strike, specifically because of concerns over AI being used to replace actors in the game development process, and that they’re asking for protections from its usage. This includes very reasonable things like requiring consent before making an AI version of the actor in question, fair compensation, and to be informed of how the AI dub is being used.
For Burch, her concern is a video like this coming out that is based on someone’s performance, and “the possibility that if we lose this fight, that person would have no recourse. They wouldn’t have any protections, any way to fight back. And that possibility… it makes me so sad. It hurts my heart. It scares me.”
The leaked video is just a tech demo, it’s not something we’ll necessarily see implemented in any games or for other purposes, but personally I hope it stays as buried as Sony’s lawyers are trying to make the footage. Fingers crossed SAG-AFTRA gets their needs met.
