Roger Clark, the voice and motion capture actor for Red Dead Redemption 2’s protagonist Arthur Morgan, shared his thoughts on the use of artificial intelligence in video game acting and believes that replacing some actors with AI is “inevitable.”
In a new interview IGN Clark said that while he believes that “audiences and customers still have a little more respect and consideration for human work,” it is ultimately “undeniable” that “AI is here to stay.” Additionally, while he believes that AI can be used as a tool and in ways “that will likely help this industry,” he is still not entirely comfortable with the use of AI.
It bothers me when AI is used to copy what has already been done before. If you can’t hire Troy Baker and just get an AI program to say whatever you want, I find that incredibly immoral. But there are many, many uses of AI that I know can and probably will help the industry. It pains me to say this, but I think it is an inescapable truth. For selfish reasons, I just want to keep working, you know?
Continuing, he noted that although AI is constantly improving, it still eventually recreates the information that was fed into it and recycles what was done before. He added that the “human aspect” that real actors bring with them at their core is still a “valuable” factor that can give a little more weight to a narrative than if you knew it was just randomly generated by some clever AI program.
Using AI to imitate voices is a highly controversial topic for a number of reasons. Perhaps the most worrying aspect is what Clark mentioned – the ability to force actors to say absolutely anything without their consent, which can be destructive, especially if AI is used to create offensive things. There are also copyright concerns as AI tools are being developed using pre-existing sound files that may be copyrighted, and there are concerns that high-tech AI could put people out of work.
