So. Much. Fear.
That’s the nature of new technology. Whenever “the next big thing” becomes part of the zeitgeist, the world seems to explode with opportunists, hype monsters, and those who are terrified that “this will change everything,” or want to make a buck off of that fear.
The voiceover industry is resilient and defiant, and it has been through change after change. 9/11 and the associated economic downturn barely dented the industry. The rise of the P2Ps changed the way many work, but have hardly been apocalyptic. The financial crisis of 2008, the worst since the Great Depression, slowed things down by a small margin for a year or so….then they picked right back up. The rise of micro-budget platforms like Fiverr also failed to cause the cataclysm. Today, the fear is that AI voices will replace human voice actors…..and if you live on VO social media, that fear is EVERYWHERE.
Here are a couple of stories and some journalistic insight to help you sleep better, oh fellow mic jockeys.
A few weeks ago I was hired to voice a submission for the recent Cannes Film Festival, one of the film industry’s signature annual events.
As often happens, the client sent over the video I would be narrating prior to the directed session. This video contained a scratch track. A scratch track that used an AI voice. And, honestly, a pretty good one. It probably could have sufficed for the final, if I’m being candid. Not an exceptional VO, but a reasonably competent one that a layman might believe was a real person.
I have strong faith that most sophisticated creatives…..people who aren’t working on tight margins and beholden to brutal corporate economics, are going to reflexively refuse to use AI voices to replace humans. Authenticity has been the keyword that has driven our industry for over a decade now. And authentic AI is not.
Thus, I have no problem broaching the subject with a client, and I did. As we were chatting at the beginning of the session, I asked if the scratch was AI as I though, and my suspicions were confirmed. I commented that it was pretty decent and asked why they wouldn’t just use that for the final as opposed to hiring me at a proper rate. The reply? “This is for Cannes. The client would kill us if they knew we used a fake voice for the final.”
Then followed a ninety minute session where a very dedicated director explored every nuance the copy had to offer, and we got to experience the high that creatives working together in synchronicity find when they are, essentially, at play. The director’s job, my job, that interplay between two creators…..this is not something a machine can replace. And not something those creating elite work would want one to.
A premium production for a premiere event. The very thought of a “fake” voice was anathema.
Similarly, some months ago I had the privilege of doing national TV work for an Amazon ad campaign tying in Alexa, (their virtual assistant!,) and the Lightyear movie. This job involved a few lines as Mission Control, and was booked for an hour session. Another fun and creative director. Over a dozen takes in about twenty minutes. Session complete. Her parting words? “This is why we don’t use AI or sound design. We could never get this kind of range this fast.”
National TV. Fair pay. For the world’s leading virtual assistant. AI VO? Not even a consideration.
As we panic over being replaced by AI, we may even be ignoring its potential benefits to us as voice actors. And no, this isn’t the “create a synthetic voice to do your work for you,” speech. Still too much downside there in my opinion.
Rather, AI may help create MORE content for us to lend our voices to.
Check out this recent article about political advertising in The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2023/05/ai-political-campaigns-2024-election-democracy-chatgpt/674182/?utm_source=msn
There’s some scary stuff in there about deepfakes and other potential abuses, but what caught my eye was the discussion of using AI to create 50 commercial variations in a matter of seconds, (hopefully using licensed video and REAL copywriters!) to test different messages in different markets. And guess what? If there’s one part of voiceover that is perhaps least likely to use plagiarism software to replace human voice actors, it’s one where the opposing candidate could drop a spot saying, “Senator Twaddlebutt even used a robot to voice his campaign ads, replacing a human actor. Senator Twaddlebutt doesn’t care about the jobs of everyday Americans.”
More spots than ever. More content than ever. More need for VO than ever.
And that’s just one genre.
Inevitably, AI, plagiarism software, whatever you want to call it, will eat away at marginal work, and surely there will be the occasional splashy production that chooses to employ it. But it may also create as much new work for us as it takes away, or more still, and in any case, the hype-driven panic needs to stop. We’re not even in chapter one of what this technology will evolve into. This is the prologue. The foreword. Heck, the cover of the book. It’s okay to be vigilant and plan for disruption, but for those who think the end is nigh, all I can say is feel free to drop your client list in the comments on your way out the door.
Leave a Reply