Quincy Surasmith is a radio journalist and actor, but you may also hear his voice and never realize it. That’s because he’s been the voice of Thai-speaking cartoons, chattering background crowds, and characters without major speaking roles. It’s not all glamorous. “I’m making grunting noises, getting beat up by some guy,” Suarasmith says. “It takes specific improv and acting skills.”
Soon those grunting and background chatter performances could be at risk of being replaced by artificial intelligence. Voice acting is a highly specialized skill, but generative AI is becoming more adept at talking back, from cloning celebrity voices to narrating audiobooks. The tech doesn’t just create more competition for jobs; voice actors also worry about their vocals being stolen and copied to promote mis- and disinformation, becoming victims of deepfakes, or hearing themselves appear in pornographic content without their consent—all situations that would damage their professional reputations and plunder their biggest, most recognizable asset: their voices.
Industry experts agree that some jobs will be lost in the gen-AI boom. Cheap, entry-level voice work can likely be replaced by machine-generated vocals. But they’re also optimistic that AI can’t fully automate what voice actors do. To get the right emotion, dialects, and artistry behind the craft, producers will still need to hire humans. For animated characters in high-production-value shows, having human actors to convey cultural nuances is vital. But Surasmith worries that AI may be cheaper to hire for some of the smaller gigs: “Is that something production companies will think, ‘Hey, that’s the replaceable part?’”
AI tends to make the voices “as boring as possible,” says Dan Lenard, president of the Word-Voices Organization, a nonprofit association for voice work. The technology could be a low-cost fix for companies that make, say, informational HR videos, but synthetic voices don’t engage people in the same way as humans do. “Every voice is different, every accent is different, and I think that’s one of the things AI cannot duplicate,” Lenard says.
Still, companies are eying the opportunities. Last week, Spotify announced a pilot for a translation feature for podcasts. It’s powered in part by OpenAI’s generative voice tech and translates podcasters’ voices into other languages. The first batch features popular figures like actors Dax Shepard and Monica Padman, sportscaster Bill Simmons, and former Daily Show host Trevor Noah. Then, OpenAI also announced it had integrated voice tech into its chatbot ChatGPT, so people can speak back and forth with it.
The rapid advances in tech threaten more than just voice artists’ jobs; the actors also worry that their voices could be used to create new content they haven’t signed off on. Two years ago, the team behind Roadrunner, a documentary about the late Anthony Bourdain, used AI to clone his voice and have it read an email he had written. The move set off alarm bells in Hollywood and raised ethical questions about how AI might bring people’s voices, gestures, and words back to life after they’d died.
Featured Video A.I. Tries 20 Jobs | WIRED
Many of these concerns have carried over into the ongoing contract negotiations between the Screen Actors Guild—American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and the Hollywood studios. Some voice work must be done by people in the SAG-AFTRA union, but there are many jobs not protected. And lots of voice work falls to working-class people in an already precarious industry, says Tim Friedlander, president of the National Association of Voice Actors.
Now is the moment for voice artists to carefully watch their contracts—if their work is cloned, either by producers or rogue actors pulling it from ads or shows and re-creating it, their recognizable vocals could be used far beyond their original intent. “Instability is already very disconcerting when you’re competing against other humans,” Friedlander says. “And now you have to compete against yourself.”
As it stands, SAG members are on strike as they try to negotiate with Hollywood studios to ensure their next contract offers “informed consent and fair compensation when a ‘digital replica’ is made of a performer” or when their voice, likeness, or performance is altered by AI. Even if the actors union gets stronger AI protections than those granted through the contract the Writers Guild of America secured with Hollywood studios last week, it won't protect all voice actors. Those working on, say, video games still need guardrails protecting their work. Talks between SAG and major video game companies concluded last week with no deal.
Far away from the strikes, other voice actors are eyeing generative AI cautiously. African voice actors are currently preparing to negotiate fair contracts for work that address the issues. As more companies try to diversify voices, the demand for African voices is up, says Jennifer Kanari, administrator of the Voice Actors League of Kenya, a network for voice artists. Like many other voice actors, Kanari is not anti-AI but wants to see voice actors fairly compensated if their voices are cloned to be used outside the performance they gave. “It would not be a bad thing to have an African voice on an African doll or toy,” Kanari says, but actors like her need clear contracts on how their voice will be used, and for how long.
Jazz Mistri, a voice actor in Nairobi also with the Voice Actors League of Kenya, says working in African accents and dialects has its advantages now. “There is no cloning us yet,” Mistri says. “We have so many different dialects; we have so many different accents. There is a huge opportunity, a huge demand, for our voice. We’re in a great position to have a say, to determine how we interact with these AI platforms.”
