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SAG-AFTRA Files Unfair Labor Practice Complaint Against Epic Games Due To A.I. Darth Vader (www.gameinformer.com)

submitted 2 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[-] [email protected] 74 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

TL;DR: their argument is that using AI trained on an actor, even with said actor's blessing, is unfair because it shuts out other actors who used to get work imitating that voice.

[-] [email protected] 51 points 2 weeks ago

A little more than that, actually.

The company says Llama Productions chose to replace human performers' work with AI technology but did so “without providing any notice of their intent to do this and without bargaining with us over appropriate terms.” As such, SAG-AFTRA has filed an unfair labor practice complaint against the company with the NLRB.

[-] [email protected] 21 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

While I agree it’s better to use real voice actors in most acting & pre-recorded situations, the audio is dynamically generated on the fly in Fortnite Darth, it’s all AI responses, including referring to you by the name of your skin/character you happen to be playing as.

I’m not sure how that could work with a pre-recorded actor, unless they program a whole AI vocal off them which while possible is a much bigger undertaking I believe?

Had a go with it today, & it was quite fun & novel, especially how it refers to you by name & asks some specific questions on things you’re doing in game at that moment, & responds to questions you ask it in a relatively good if simple/limited way. It’s obviously a fairly basic implementation so far, but this is likely the beginning of a lot of in game NPC character content whether we like it or not…

[-] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago

Finally, EA Games open worlds will have something interesting for the first 3 days

[-] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago

From how it sounds, especially with the actor's permission, this seems like my preferred way of using AI-generated voices.

I'd really want to make sure any legal language around actor AI permissions is built to avoid coaxing though - like including it as an "industry standard" clause for infinite use when recording a single audition. Ideally, the voice would always "belong to" the actor it came from, and would only be licensed on specific uses, like "This NPC within this game mode, available for 8 weeks in summer of 2025". No idea if that's what they did here.

[-] [email protected] -1 points 2 weeks ago

I don't think dynamic generation is the right argument here. They could have an actor literally playing the character, like how character actors at Disney World interact with you. I think the argument here is scale. I'm assuming that there are a ton of instances of Vader and not enough actors to keep up with demand.

[+] [email protected] -13 points 2 weeks ago

I mean......of all the things to hate on AI for, this isn't one. You don't WANT an immitation voice. You want James Earl Jones. But he's dead. AI is the best outcome possible.

[-] [email protected] 17 points 2 weeks ago

I disagree, I want working actors to get paid. I will always take Maurice LaMarche over an AI Orson Welles. Just get that YouTube Grocery Vader guy like they did for Force Unleashed, he's great.

[-] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago

Link?

[-] [email protected] 10 points 2 weeks ago

Chad Vader: Day Shift Manager

[-] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago

Ha! That's good shit. Thanks buddy :)

[-] [email protected] -2 points 2 weeks ago

and I want higher quality lower budget games Irrigardless of silly actors.

[-] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

You're getting downvoted, but the move to fully-voiced dialogue absolutely killed the level of reactivity in games, and AI is one of the few ways to bring that level of detail back without bloating budgets even higher than they already are.

Voice acting is expensive (and makes rewrites expensive too), and spending development funds on anything players won't hear is considered "wasted money" so you rarely see meaningful branching in storylines anymore outside of the biggest budget games. Conversations have also became short and stilted to keep recording costs and disk space down. Just look at the freaking encyclopedia that was Morrowind dialogue compared to the single sentence sound bytes used for conversations in Oblivion and Skyrim.

I'm not a fan of how AI has been handled by corporations, but if they set up a system where voice actors (and other creatives) could be hired to train models, get paid for every project that uses them, and they (or their estate) have the right to look at and refuse projects the same as if they'd taken the contract normally, I'd be all for the AI revolution.

There's a middle ground where generative AI is fair to creative talent and opens up a world of possibilities. It's unlikely, but hopefully one day we get there.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Agreed, it's very obvious which way the wind is blowing.

[-] [email protected] 16 points 2 weeks ago

No, I want it voiced by a trained actor.

I thought Terrance Howard was great in the first iron man, I was really bummed to find out they dropped him, then I saw the second one and you know what? Don cheadle knocked it out of the park.

I thought the daily show would be shit without Craig Kilbourn, and then bam, we get Jon Stewart. Pure gold.

If we had just used AI to knock off the originals we never would have seen other actors shine in the role

[-] [email protected] 12 points 2 weeks ago

Yeah, but Epic broke the contract. Union has to sue or it's not worth anything. Simple as.

That said, the union could have gotten something else out of this if Epic did the lawful thing. Even the fact that Epic acknowledged they need to follow the contract would have been valuable.

[-] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago

I do want an imitation voice, because I want new people. I don't want to hear the voices of the dead just because companies don't want to pony up. I'm ready for the next JEJ but that'll never happen if the industry dies because companies have just been reusing AI voices instead of hiring anyone.

AI should be used for tedious tasks not creative ones.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

Voicing lines/acting is all tedious to me unlike programming :3

[-] [email protected] -1 points 2 weeks ago

That's just classism repackaged.

[-] [email protected] 17 points 2 weeks ago

Also the fact that Epic did this without notifying the union or giving them a chance to bargain

[-] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago

ie. It's Rent Seeking at this point.

this post was submitted on 19 May 2025

221 points (99.1% liked)

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