So when I woke up I found myself assailed by a quote that is probably going to haunt me for at least the next week as I try to make sense of it- a new bizarre comment made for the SAG-AFTRA strikes. Let me do a little bring-up-to-speed for us all. With the rise of very simplified AI models that are able to clone and mimic many arts, albeit poorly, the wavering axe over the head of actual artists livelihoods have sent many alarm bells ringing. I mean sure- it'll be a long while before AI starts gunning for script-writer positions- but we've already seen multimillion dollar Disney productions employ AI art under deeply questionable reasonings. And when we go to AI mimicking voices of other actors- that is scarily accurate from the sound font at least. And stupidly accessible for anyone. Which is of extreme concern particularly in the world of voice actors.
Already Voice Acting is not really a profession you go into in order to become a millionaire. It's gruelling gig-work where you'll likely subsist hand-to-mouth with a second job just to keep the lights on- these are people in it for the passion of the craft. The threat of AI is two fold in that regard. On one hand it would be all too easy, should these practices become accepted, for a studio to bring in an actor for a single session and then clone their voice to throw over the rest of the game. Sure, that performance is going to lack soul, personality and drive- but some companies don't care about that. Some companies are looking for that. (Embark Studios will never not make me confused with that stance.) And on the otherhand- even should we reach a place were actors will be paid the price of all their prospective sessions just for the privilege of the initial clone: why would they- these guys are in the job so that they can act. They want to act. This takes the fun out of the job even in the best case scenario. It's just literally water on oil- they don't mix!
The Screen Actors Guild are therefore striking in order to hopefully establish protections in place that will keep voice actors in games safe- which is certainly required given the sheer amount of actual desiccated corporate ghouls that loom about the industry huffing copium about every hairbrained money making scam that wafts under their nose. Actual promising technology that works (as opposed to the hilarious NFT rabbit hole that some are still falling down) is wont to make them forget how to act. That is- how to act like genuine living morsels and not refuse feasting crustaceous barnacles latched to the rotted hulls of otherwise soaring creative ventures. Garbage munching minuscule cretins that gorge far more than they could ever clean. Loathsome Dungeaters. Yeah, I like that last one.
Now we're up to date lets get back to this quote that has just been doing somersaults around my head like a pinball wrecking up a machine. For pinballs. Just listen. So the Boss of Amazon Game Studios had himself a little interview- and typically when quotes from an Interview are making it into the headline- that's a bad thing. You want people to not find your quotes so crazy they market it to bring in readers. Ideally. Now our Amazon Game Studios is still fledgling in the grand scheme of the industry and I'm trying desperately to colour his comments through that lens- even though I'm pretty sure the entire studio is built on the backs of otherwise veterans- there's a veneer of newness I'm pretending to coat my eyes with for their benefit- but it's difficult to keep up.
You see, things were already going downhill when the SAG strikes were brought up to begin with because Amazon have a hilariously contentious history with unions and their action- to the point where I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Jeff Bezos is trying to revive the modern day Pinkertons- the absolute creep. When you find yourself in the position of a Boss role for a giant subsidiary of an even bigger company that deals with Unions it really behoves you to have a stronger acid reflex then 'Woah buddy, don't really know about all that!' And yet in the face of SAG's strike that is was our Boss man pretty much said. (Not exactly said, this is a summation- keep up.) "I've got to be careful" he says, "I don't really want to get in the middle of it." Says the boss of a game studio in a conversation about game actors striking. (There is a quote about Power and Responsibility somewhere out there, I just know it!)
Now the offending line that lives in my psyche? "When we talk about AI, first of all, hopefully it will help us to have new gameplay ideas, which has nothing to do with taking work away from anyone." Typical non-committal positivity with a little bit of pushback against the naysayers- unambitious. "And especially for games, we don't really have acting." Umm... yeah, that's what you call an oopsie. Essentially what we have hear is the man extolling the virtues of AI because he thinks it will only speed up the development process- which actually has nothing to do with the SAG (Screen Actors Guild) strikes, which was literally the lead-in to this response, but go easy on the man: with an IQ like that I'm assuming he's struggling to breath and talk at the same time- this is really impressive for him! But then he waves away the strikers because. "For games, we don't really have acting."
Now true to themselves, most Games Journalists have immediately gone bad faith with this by assuming he's discrediting all video game acting as non-existent and are thus pushing back by noting all the incredible acting performances from modern games. I'm not kicking down- I recognise that he's clearly talking about Amazon Game Studios specifically- but here's the thing: the comment doesn't make sense there either! Their biggest current game, the MMO New World, does have voice acting: the game even bent itself over backwards to make sure the entire starting area is voiced- which is rare for any MMO. But the way Boss-man is talking he seems to doubt the relevance of voice work in a largely online game as inconsequential because why? It's not a story driven linear game? Every angle of art that goes into making a blockbuster, no matter the genre or focus, has to be executed to incredible standards in order to feel natural and melt into the pot of the whole product. A simple observer should never even think of the voice acting, or the music, because it should fit naturally to their ears and feel real. But someone involved in the creation process- heck the studio head- it's the height of incompetence to not know that!
So the single most charitable take away I can make from these comments is that Boss man got the company mandate to try and discredit the strikes when appropriate, and that order got mangled in the half-chewed cage he lamentably calls a brain and dribbled out as this eye-roll of a statement. A beacon for the Strikers to point at- ammunition towards how little the industry bottom-munchers respect their work and how willing they are to welcome in the AI workflow to cut them out of the equation. Great job, nitwit, you've played yourself! Sometimes I truly do wonder about the world, and if these are the kinds of people who crawl to the top of the pack- what does that say about the rest of us? What does that say about the pack as it is? God, I didn't expect some lickspittle from Amazon Game Studios to hit with a damn existential crisis...
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