this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2024

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GTA 5 Actor Ned Luke Calls Out 'Bulls**t' AI Chatbot That Uses His Voice (www.ign.com)

submitted 1 year ago by L4s@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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GTA 5 Actor Ned Luke Calls Out 'Bullst' AI Chatbot That Uses His Voice::Grand Theft Auto voice actor Ned Luke, who played Michael De Santa in GTA 5, has called out a "fking bulls**t" AI chatbot which uses his voice.

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[–] tacosanonymous@lemm.ee 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

To be clear, I am against AI for anything that doesn’t address inequality.

But for shits and giggles, isn’t this guy's voice just the Great Value brand version of Ray Liotta?

[–] sunbytes@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This has sent me down such a rabbit-hole.

I thought Ray Liotta did the voice for Michael. This whole time.

Like how the Trevor actor's face is used for Trevor, I assumed they used a (de-aged) Ray Liotta's likeness/MoCap.

That's so strange. I'm surprised Ray didn't have anything to say about it (or maybe he did and it's forgotten now).

[–] ripcord@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Why Ray Liotta?

I mean, Michael sort of looks like him, I guess? But doesn't look or sound THAT much like him.

Of course, he played the main character in Vice City, is that why you were thinking of him...?

But no, Ned did the mocap, they did the models based after him, rhe voice...

[–] variants@possumpat.io 3 points 1 year ago

Here I thought tools like lyrebird were going to be great for game mods to add basic voice acting to those fan made expansions

[–] maness300@lemmy.world -5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

wahhhh

Imagine how blue collar workers felt when their jobs were being automated.

[–] CptEnder@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Or hear me out: no one should be replaced by robots without adequate compensation.

Both enrich people who input very little without regard to the worker's skills (the owner of the factory vs the trained fabricator, the programmer of the AI vs the trained actor).

[–] maness300@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Well yeah, but that would require white collar workers admitting the disparity in wealth should shrink instead of grow.

They still believe those who have more deserve more, and those who have less deserve less.

They are still progressive up until it fucks with their wallets or forces them to use their brains.

Just look at how mad they get when you point out that their criticism of AI is identical to blue collar criticisms of factory automation.

The one thing the left and the right can always unite on is greed.

[+] DreadPotato@sopuli.xyz -7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (6 children)

Why is it that when a human impersonator mimics a voice, it's just fine. But when a computer does it, it becomes a huge ethical issue?

I'm not saying they're not wrong here, I just find it interesting that using an organic method of recreation (an impersonator) is considered fine, but an electronic method (the "AI" in this case) is considered ethically wrong.

[–] takeda@lemmy.world 35 points 1 year ago

It's because it is about the voice. A good voice actor can produce many voices. Yes you can find someone else but it almost always is not identical. And since you have to hire someone anyway and they are good, what even make them pretend to be someone else? They might have better voices.

With computers you can essentially steal someone's voice and the way they act and use that for cheap.

Those companies cry about piracy, that someone downloaded something and that made them not purchase the movie, music or game that many wouldn't purchase anyway.

This actually is the real piracy. They can steal the likeness of those people and make profit without needing to hire them ever again.

[–] qooqie@lemmy.world 30 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Maybe a few different things, one requires physical effort and skill the other, while impressive tech wise, is relatively easy to use and replicate.

The other reason is probably because it’s easy to abuse as we’ve already seen with other news about “fans of x celebrity get scammed by deepfake”.

And another even if it’s not a scam using their voice for financial gain is really easy. While the one human who could imitate the guy could do this it was 1 versus mostly everyone.

[–] MajesticSloth@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I see ads all the time now using various famous actors voices for spamming scammer crap. If someone didn't know better they would absolutely think these actors were shilling the stuff.

[–] DreadPotato@sopuli.xyz -4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Well, scams are unethical regardless of method used. It would equally unethical if done by a human. So that's not the difference.

And Impersonators are already profiting off of someone else, since they're specifically hired to mimic someone.

The other points you mention all boil down to being ethically wrong because it's easy, which doesn't really make any sense IMO. why is a thing ethically wrong just because it's easy, if it wasn't ethically wrong when it was hard?

Would you consider a person using a voice-changer to mimic ethically wrong?

[–] tonyn@lemmy.ml 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Social animals like us invent ethics. It all comes down to what most people find appalling vs what most people find acceptable. A lot of that comes down to empathy. How would you feel if it was done to you?

[+] DreadPotato@sopuli.xyz -7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Impersonating my voice? Not really something I have an issue with as such. From the article they are using the voice of the actor to impersonate a fictional character. If someone used my voice to create a fictional character like done here, I probably wouldn't have an issue with that.

[–] Sanctus@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Are you a voice actor whose income relies on selling their voice performances? You might care then when companies just use a bot to make your voice while you go broke on the street.

[–] DreadPotato@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Whether it's a voice actor relying on voice acting to not go broke, or a factory worker relying on menial tasks on a production line to not go broke doesn't really matter IMO. But pretty much no one bats an eye at the latter.

[–] Sanctus@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No one is pitching a fit because the percieved lose of skill isn't there. How many people can perform menial labor compared to the number of people that can perform voice acting labor in a specific language or languages? People are more outraged because they percieve a skilled laborer being attacked. The truth is, both forms of labor equate in more than one way.

[–] Womble@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

People are outraged because people with social status (actors, artists) in the west are losing out to technological disruption rather than the usual lower class people and people from the global south.

[–] Sanctus@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yes, that is also true. But I was replying to a comment about menial warehouse laborers being replaced with robotics. So I was staying in that scope.

[–] TORFdot0@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hiring a sound-alike isn't taking a job out of the economy for one. The original voice is able to accept the job at the pay rate the sound-alike took usually.

Not to mention impersonators are usually doing the voice according to parody/fair-use

Nobody wants to end people using AI to make Johnny Cash sing "Barbie Girl", but using it to replace Keanu Reeves in John Wick 8 for instance would be across the line. Recasting the role is one thing, but replacing the human altogether is another.

[+] DreadPotato@sopuli.xyz -8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Hiring a sound-alike isn't taking a job out of the economy for one. The original voice is able to accept the job at the pay rate the sound-alike took usually.

That is a Luddite approach to the subject I would say. Technology has always displaced jobs and rendered some skills useless. For a long time it has just only occurred to unskilled and/or manual labour, most people have no issue with that. Now we're starting to see skilled and creative labour getting hit by it, but why should that be any different?

[–] TORFdot0@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Replacing an assembly line worker with a more efficient machine creates jobs as the machines need to be manufactured, serviced, designed, and replaced. Jobs are created in shipping and logistics as factories are able to create more product. Meanwhile the costs of goods go down and benefits the whole economy.

Art is uniquely human. Art is sacred. Art created wholly by a machine with nothing but a human prompt is not art. People using AI to rip off content from existing YouTubers and reupload it with AI generated voice and script rewrites aren't making art. People who use AI to create demented kids videos so they can steal from advertisers are definitely not creating art. Someone who may use an AI narration and AI assisted graphics may be creating something worth calling art but it's going to be seen as lesser by everyone else.

Hollywood executives using AI to replace extras, writers and talent are not causing more jobs to be created else in the economy, they are not causing the costs of entertainment to go down, and they aren't making it more accessible for creatives to make it in mainstream entertainment. It is a net-drag.

I'm not saying your opinion is wrong, just that I disagree with it on the arbitrary standard that art is sacred.

[–] bilb@lem.monster 2 points 1 year ago

There's plenty of art that I don't value the human element of at all. I don't think any of the Corporate Memphis blob people on tech sites or the designs on a billboard are "sacred," for instance, but they are unambiguously art. If you do these things with generative AI, I won't regret the loss of human involvement.

Art done to express something human will never go away as long as people feel a need to express themselves that way. Companies will hire fewer graphics designers, true, but I don't really give a fuck to be honest.

[–] DreadPotato@sopuli.xyz -2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Replacing an assembly line worker with a more efficient machine creates jobs as the machines need to be manufactured, serviced, designed, and replaced. Jobs are created in shipping and logistics as factories are able to create more product. Meanwhile the costs of goods go down and benefits the whole economy.

Ah, but we don't yet see the repercussions of this technology. Automation initially removed far more jobs that it created, and the people it replaced mostly couldn't benefit from this change.

I disagree with it on the arbitrary standard that art is sacred.

That kind of opens a completely different discussion on what should be considered "art" or worthwhile of consumption, but I get your point.

[–] sir_reginald@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

the AI generated one is super easy to (ab)use.

[–] DreadPotato@sopuli.xyz -5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I completely agree, but why would there be a skill-component to the ethicalness of impersonation? Is it equally unethical if a person used a voice-changer? It requires the same amount of skill as the AI.

[–] sir_reginald@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

I haven't heard of voice-changers that can replicate other people's voices that aren't made with machine learning.

The issue is impersonation. An AI voice generator that does not imitate anyone in specific and has a "unique" voice, I have no issue with that.

And obviously, a human voice imitator that uses it for impersonating others is also an issue. But that's far less common and accessible than a computer powered option.

[–] Wrench@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Just like musicians, voice actors have spent years working on their style and range, making their particular flavor unique.

AI is essentially stealing their entire product for cheap.

AI will eventually be able to convincingly clone music styles and voices. You don't think NIN would be justified in being upset when AI will be able to put out entire fake albums in their style and voice?

[–] DreadPotato@sopuli.xyz 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Anyone is allowed to mimic or copy anyone's style. A style is not something that you can copyright, only the individual works.

[–] Kbobabob@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

Correct, but this can also backfire as they are just proving to the world that they don’t have what it takes to be original.

[–] maness300@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago

Why is it that when a human impersonator mimics a voice, it’s just fine. But when a computer does it, it becomes a huge ethical issue?

💰💰💰

We're just seeing how white collar workers react to their jobs being automated akin to blue collar workers'.