General FreeSpace > FreeSpace Discussion

Can we get someone to just AI Voice Over new missions with Robert Loggia etc...

<< < (3/3)

Colonol Dekker:
This sums it up.

mjn.mixael:
In popular media we see characters recast all the time and it's no big deal. I'd much prefer if someone really wanted Admiral Petrarch to be voiced in their new FS game that they just find a new voice artist. A good one could even try to approximate the voice well enough (see Red Skull in Avengers Endgame).

Kie99:

--- Quote from: 0rph3u5 on April 03, 2024, 05:31:28 pm ---
--- Quote from: Colonol Dekker on March 15, 2024, 04:35:41 pm ---I enjoyed reading this.

--- End quote ---

To be fair the rest of us sounded like some grumpy elders right there (myself included) :D


--- Quote from: Kie99 on April 01, 2024, 07:22:36 am ---Morally and legally I don't see it as fundamentally different from what we've already been doing.
[...]
I don't see why voice work is meaningfully different.  It's not like we're going to pay any of the original VAs to do it if we can't do it with AI, nor pay anyone else.  There's no material loss.

--- End quote ---

I think you are drawing a false equivalency here.

An actor's/talent's voice or likeness are not a comparable piece of intellectual property as they have an existence divorced from the fiction context they are embedded in. An actor/talent continues to be a person even if they stepped out of the recording booth/off the stage/leave the set. And that personhood is inseparably linked to their voice (both in the literal and metaphorical sense) and likeness as identifiable external characteristics.

While we are talking about professional actors/talents there is a case to be made about the commodification of this aspect of their personhood being consensual. However making that argument in full also means to acknowledge that said consent is conditional on remuneration. No payment, no consent, no commodity to be bought or sold.

Additionally, it would negligent not to consider that even with professional actors who take pay-check jobs as their livelihood, the pattern of payment = performance is not that simple.
There a good number of performances that only exist because circumstances align: the right director, the right script, the right moment in time, the right stage in their career etc. etc. pp. As a result some performances would not exist to be used as training data but for a house of cards of circumstance which made the actor/talent consent.



Furthermore, there is another point were your argument is lacking.
Your argument rests on the fact that the activity of this community, creating derivative works by reusing story concepts, 3D models, music etc. has been non-consensual from the start.

But it has not. Take a look at this section of the FS2 EULA (link to the wiki):

--- Quote ---You [the owner of a copy of FS2] are granted a revocable, nonassignable limited license to create derivative works of this Software solely for your own personal noncommercial home entertainment use and may publicly display such derivative works to the extent specifically authorized by Interplay in writing. [Details on how to look up the specifics of that policy at the date of original printing follow]
--- End quote ---

By owning a copy of the game, each community member that owns the game, has been granted conditional consent to create derivate works and "display" them (i.e. share them). This is further reinforced by the fact that FRED exists in the retail versions of the games and its use is encouraged by providing a tutorial.

Said consent is conditional, but the condition is simply to that no money is being made from the derivative works as commodeties. Which is a condition easy enough to meet if you have desire for it.

--- End quote ---

Likenesses that are inseparably linked to people are frequently used in fan works.  If someone's drawing art about Star Wars they might use Luke Hamill or Harrison Ford's face.  If someone were selling that art professionally they'd have to pay the individuals involved or whatever rights holders.

Does "the Software" encompass everything in the game?  You seem to be suggesting it covers story, animations, models etc.  Because any voices we made would be a derivative work from what was in the game, for non-commercial use.

I've got a vague memory of a mission someone did ages ago, I think it was a version of the opening FreeSpace cutscene with Lt. Ash.  Whoever made it had taken dialogue from the game and cut it up so the characters were saying different things.  It was nothing massively ambitious, it might have been editing together a few lines from Command to create new lines.  Supposing it existed as I remember it, should whoever made it have contacted the voice actor for Command and offered them money?  How is it different from what's done with an AI model except in terms of sophistication?

What if a person did a dead on impersonation of Robert Loggia, would that be permissible in a campaign?

There was someone on here creating 3D models of FreeSpace ships and selling them (I think at cost price, but they were still selling them).  Nobody had a problem with that.  That's not authorised in the EULA.

This isn't to say there aren't a lot of legitimate concerns about using people's voices.  It's going to have a devastating effect on jobs in the voice acting industry, there's a big risk of fake news, voice recordings are going to be rendered completely unreliable.  I just don't see their use in a free fan campaign that's obviously fictional and that a few hundred people are going to play for nothing as anything to be concerned about.

mjn.mixael:
There's a big difference between chopping up existing files and recreating the voice. Voice artists and actors all over have come out strongly against AI being used to generate their performances without permission. You can find dozens of articles like this one with a simple google search. Are Robert Loggia or his estate okay with you recreating his voice? If you don't have permission, it's morally questionable and ethically low.

There's almost 8 billion people living on this planet. Surely it'd be easier, better quality, and more above board to get one of them to bring your new Admiral Petrarch to life.

Mongoose:
My two cents: at the end of the day, I consume/play creative works because they are just that, created. They are a way of sharing in the skills and talents of another person, whether it's their ability to craft fantasy spacecraft out of nothing but Blender and their own imagination, to craft a piece of music that they devised, or to deliver a great vocal performance. That creative spark is a fundamental part of the human existence as far as I'm concerned. If the mass-market entertainment industry starts going the way of soulless algorithm-generated pablum, then they've officially lost me as a customer. I'll stick to what's being made by actual people.

And that's before you get into the massive ethical issues raised by applying generative AI to a deceased person's voice in order to generate a novel performance without their or their family members' permission. No thank you.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[*] Previous page