Horizon Zero Dawn: Break the Silence on AI Aloy from Ashly
A recent leak of a Sony experiment with AI into an AI appearance for Aloy from Horizon Zero Dawn has left many people in the gaming world quite concerned. The original voice and motion capture performer for Aloy, Ashly Burch, has officially spoken out to clear her non-involvement and also share her worry about how AI would affect game performances and the rights of actors.
Aloy AI Experiment Leaked
A technical demonstration featuring AI-driven speech and facial animation for Aloy appeared online, only to be removed soon after by copyright claims. This was created by the Advanced Technology Group of PlayStation Studios with OpenAI's Whisper for speech-to-text, Sony's Emotional Voice Synthesis system, and Mockingbird technology for facial animation. This demo found itself online but got taken down soon after due to a copyright claim.
This was bult by the Advanced Technology Group of PlayStation Studios through OpenAI's Whisper for Speech-to-Text, Sony's Emotional Voice Synthesis, and Mockingbird technology for facial animation. Burch went ahead and stated that she and Guerrilla Games were not part of that experiment.
She explained moreover that her voice and facial data were not used in the AI prototype, and she is worried about how actors will be affected by that in the future.
Burch's response toward AI-generated characters
In a social media video, Burch discussed the far-reaching implications of AI in the video games, stating:
“I feel disconcerted by this art form. Game performance are an art form... Now we are on strike... Because this technology exists and because we know that game companies want to use it, we're asking for protections"
Such statements put further light on the inherent unease that voice actors and performers have with the use of AI-generated characters without their consent. With the SAG-AFTRA strike hoping to gain rights for actors against unauthorised AI duplication, Burch calls for clearer regulations to protect artists.
The Future of AI in Gaming
The use of AI in video games is on an upward trend, not least because of the new creative possibilities it opens up for developers, but it also opens up ethical questions with regard to the fairness of artistic integrity and rights of live actors. Burch underscored that it is crucial to find satisfactory equilibrium between the opportunities provided by technology on the one hand and treating performers in a fair way on the other.
“I just imagine a video like this coming out that has someone’s performance attached to it. That does have someone’s voice, face, or movement. And the possibility that if we lose this fight, that person would have no recourse.”
While the gaming industry is still coming to grips with AI, it is up to the actors and developers to impart their collective wisdom regarding ethical guidelines to ensure a good respect for and sustainability of performance art in video games.
Considerations
On the note of this statement by Ashly Burch: It really has suddenly reached quite a lot of ears since, in the game industry, no discussion has grown more contentious than that of where an AI fits into performance art. As technology is progressing forward, companies will have to sort out what actors own and how it's supposed to not rapulate against the works of real performers.
As more and more developers experiment with these technologies, the debate over AI-generated characters is only going to grow louder. Balancing the rights of AI and actors, this is a problem the industry must navigate after the SAG-AFTRA strike spread the issues into everyone else's ears, becoming a decisive moment that will shape whether an actor will still matter in voice acting and motion capture in video games in days to come.
