- cross-posted to:
- fuck_ai@lemmy.world
- arc_raiders@jlai.lu
- cross-posted to:
- fuck_ai@lemmy.world
- arc_raiders@jlai.lu
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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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.
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.
AI voice training is literally handing the means of production to capitalists
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.
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
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
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
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.
I’d say it’s piracy. The same thing some people went to prison for back in the days when dowloading music from p2p.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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?
the voice actors were paid to create the text-to-speech system, yes. that was why they were hired in the first place.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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…
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.
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.
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
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
Oh it’s one of those? Same reason I returned red dead redemption 2.
You are aware that you see beforehand whether the game requires a separate account (at least on Steam)? Also, how else would you enable crossplay/crosssave?
And you don’t even need to use separate credentials. You can log in with Steam just fine.You are aware that you see beforehand whether the game requires a separate account (at least on Steam)?
No, because as I indicated in my post, I didn’t buy it. I installed it from someone else’s account within my family group.
Also, how else would you enable crossplay/crosssave?
I don’t know, but not my concern.
And you don’t even need to use separate credentials. You can log in with Steam just fine.
Not according to the prompt I was shown.
No! Not having to create an account that keeps your account available cross platform!
I don’t think it’s that big of deal, doesn’t it just link the account to your steam/psn/xbox live? I don’t even remember making a password for the account. It’s not like you also have to log in to another worthless launcher like blizzard/ubisoft/ea games on steam. That’s where I draw the line.
It wanted me to make an Embark Studios account. And yes that is a big deal.
Removed by mod
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.
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.
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.
Do they charge real money for worthless cosmetics in this game? You think they’d be able to afford to bring the original voice actors back in to re-record some lines for updates, if that’s the case.
Seems kind of ironic for a game that’s about capitalists fucking the earth and leaving to space while the rest of humanity is plagued by AI death machines for generations.
Embark already used AI voices for The Finals, it’s not like this is anything new.
Let’s be real here, AI is here to stay. It’s much better that they hired VAs to provide the source material than the alternative: not doing that.
I mean, it’s a garbage game so, any reason to not play it I guess.
Ah, yes, ragebait on lemmy. How fabulous.
💅
I found the game to be pretty shit. It’s like fallout, but just the boring looting trash and constantly balancing inventory part, but with the added fun of people multiple times your level one shotting you.
5 hours in and I’ve got no desire to play it anymore.
I share the sentiment.
The AI voice changer in Arc is a fun thing to have. I am glad it exists.
