The debate around artificial intelligence gaming has heated up again after Baldur’s Gate 3 voice actor Amelia Tyler, who narrates the BG3 story, condemned new AI tools that have been using her voice without her permission.
A quote in this article references pornography based on sexual assault.
The use of AI tools has been a topic of hot debate in most industries because it’s essentially reconfiguring someone’s work, which means crediting and copyrighting the original IPs falls under a vast gray area. For Amelia Tyler, whose modern work mostly consists of using her voice in gaming, this led to her stumbling across a stream where she “heard [her] own voice reading rape porn” (as first reported by PC Gamer).
The BG3 narrator was beyond upset about the discovery, and declared using her voice in such a way without her permission is “stealing her job and her identity.” She went on to suggest it should be made illegal as quickly as possible.
“That’s the level of stuff we’ve had to deal with since this game came out and it’s been horrible, honestly,” the long-time voice actor added after her original calls.
Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time a voice actor has come across their “voice” being used in AI-generated content of a sexual nature either. Allegra Clark, the voice actor behind Genshin Impact‘s Beidou, discovered her voice being used in sexually vulgar content on TikTok, according to a post by Forbes, which caused concern not just because of the content but because such content could violate her contracts.
Because there is such a gray area surrounding AI tools, how can people like Tyler or Clark contest the use of their voices being programmed and used in AI tools? The use of AI tools for generating voice lines sadly seems here to stay, and in some edge cases, has even been deemed legal.
To combat this, the SAG-AFTRA and Replica Studios agreement laid out terms for AI-generated voices, including that actors must be compensated. However, some actors say they’re already losing jobs, while AI firms are getting more.
Recently, Astarion actor Neil Newbon said: “I don’t think you can program craft. It’s something beyond zeroes and ones, beyond the formula. It’s quite magical.”
