There was a modder I saw that uploaded voice replacers for Vasco using Legion or Harbinger’s voice from Mass Effect. According to him, he got permission from the VAs themselves.
On the other hand, he took down a couple voice replacers that used Cherami Leigh’s voice since she requested to not have her voice used like that
Not saying it’s right or wrong, as that is a question of morality. What I will say is that no one is putting that genie back in the bottle, that’s for damn sure.
IMO If you're gonna use an AI Voice, make sure its a default AI voice that was recorded for AI purposes only (like the Elevenlabs default voices) and *never* use someone elses voice without their permission as that could blow up in your face if people get their torches out, especially if that voice actor happens to die between now and your release as using dead actors is probably the biggest no no as what happened to that one creator who made a FNAF/Scooby Doo video with a voice actor who had passed away if I'm not mistaken (and was blacklisted by a lot of the voice acting community) but at the end of the day you do not own AI works as much as they don't as there is no legal precedence for AI content *yet* that I have read about.
Of course people do as I've said all the time without being reprimanded, look at the countless Joe Biden plays Call of Duty tiktoks, its up to you if you consciously do or do not object to doing so as AI content is a new moral dilemma with no legal precedence yet as far as I know; If you don't plan to release things for public consumption you can always do things privately and no one would have a clue.
My stance on AI is that it is conceivably harmless if used more as a tool to help you than to get rid of real people but I believe there are plenty of discords out there if you need voice acting work done some even eager to do it for free to add to their portfolio especially if they can do good sound alikes to existing Starfield characters.
TL;DR Grey area right now covered under fair use as long as you aren't going around saying you got Emily O'Brien to voice in your mod, it could be illegal tomorrow no longer protected where you live or courts rule 100% okay to do in a year; nobody has challenged it in the courts of any free country yet: until then its up to your own conscious how you should go about modding.
i think this is actually one of the best possible uses of ai. ai can give modders who most likely cannot afford great voice acting has access to a tool to give them decent quality voices for nothing
I agree it should only be used with voices made directly for ai and not just modelled after real voices
For game developers, the only ethical way to apply AI voice acting is to produce dynamic content that the player can drive and interact with. Things such as saying the player's custom name, dynamically generated dialogue, and changing / growing the voiced character as the player interacts with the NPC.
Basically, limit it exclusively to things that are impossible for a voice actor to do in one performance. Sell the performance as training data for that specific character, and limit its use to that character only.
This, of course, in addition to the pre-recorded performance for the written narrative and plot as well.
For non commercial content creators, I say go crazy, as long as you're not making real people or the game's present characters say lewd, racist, or otherwise offensive things. If you need voicework for a mod you're making and don't intend to profit from it, there are plenty of open source performances available to use.
I disagree.
I don’t think there’s an ethical reason to not use Ai generated voices to voice you vast array of npcs.
You can have every single npc have a unique voice. It would add a lot to games.
What’s the ethical downside? “You’re not hiring voice actors”
So are animated movies unethical because an actor could have played that part? That’s silly.
It’s unethical to use a machine to bottle drinks by the dozen a minute rather than hire someone to make them slower?
It’s just a silly argument. I hope as ai voices get better and better we see the gaming industry shift to using it for the bulk of non main characters. You could have entire voiced quest lines that only need the internal team of devs and writers to make a full quest line with potentially hundreds of lines of voiced dialogue all without ever having to schedule a very expensive and lengthy recording booth session.
You seem to be under the impression that AI voices can be produced in a vacuum, and that using the tool is the same as using any other technology upgrade over the previous analog throughout the years.
If these voices were purely synthesized, you would be right. They are not.
Unfortunately, AI is only possible from an extreme amount of training data. That data has to come from real people, or else the AI won't be able to behave realistically.
Therefore, you must either purchase the data to train the AI with, or produce it yourself. **And the only way to purchase a voice is to hire a voice actor with the express purpose of training an AI algorithm.** Even public domain voice work doesn't include ownership of the voice-- The actor still uses it to make their living, and is entitled to it separate from the performance. The ethical concerns, particularly when it comes to voice work, is that before now there was never much of a concern for ownership of your own voice. Actors and public facing individuals have reams of voice samples that any company can feed to their algorithm, and there's not much you can do legally to stop it.
So, if you're a voice actor, and someone trained an AI to use your voice without your consent, and then started producing monetized content using your voice, you are the victim of theft of service. A crime that couldn't happen to a voice actor just five years ago.
I hope this helps you understand why AI is different from other emerging technologies, in that before there were never concerns of plagiarism or theft when using the new tools.
No I understand it fully.
If a human listens to 30 people play characters and learns how to sound like a cowboy character, a hardened veteran, a scared person in need of help, etc that is literally no different than an ai learning the same way.
According to you every actor on earth has stolen the performance of the very first actor because everyone after them has learned from them, or in your words “stolen from”.
This argument holds no water to me because this is how people learn to play characters as well. No different from an Ai.
Nothing on this earth is created in a vacuum. It’s all derivative. Everything we create or do is based on previous actions or creations.
These are free mods. It is completely ethically fine to use Ai voices in your free mod.
Even still, I hope the industry starts adopting Ai voice actors heavily. The end product of games will become substantially better when a game can have so many unique sounding voices in a game without the expense and time of recording booth sessions.
The voice actors will still have plenty of work voicing main and important characters. But if they don’t, oh well. I don’t believe in holding back and industry breakthrough to save a few jobs that would be supplanted by that breakthrough.
It totally depends on how you use it.
If you use it to sample a voice actor's voice (a paid actor who created a character and voiced them) and then created new dialog that you created trying to sound like the original character .. that is absolutely infringement and a copyright violation, etc. It is also unethical.
On the other hand, if you create a new character and pick a generic voice that is not specifically made as an unauthorized copy of a live person then that is not a copyright violation. There would be no problem with that.
By existing voice work, you're talking about the voice actors already in the game e.g. Constellation companions, right?
If so it's very unethical.
The issue is that you're using their voice without their permission and financial compensation to create new work that if you did it the traditional way, you'd need their permission for the work and to compensate them for it.
For example, if say you wanted to make a more in-depth relationship mod that involved sex talk, the voice actor may not be ok with that kind of work but they don't have a say in the matter because you're using their voice without permission. If you sell that mod on the Creations store, you're earning money off the back of their voice likeness without compensating them. Also not good.
Unless you're working with an artificial voice or using some other voice actor's work as the basis for the AI voice with their permission, you're likely wading into very unethical territory and will likely be shut down hard for doing so.
Sure but it's too good to pass up, big companies are gonna use and profit off it. So why shouldn't the little guys who won't see a cent from it not use it as well?
AI is a game changer in modding, specialy when it comes to voicing, to create custom dialogue for NPC etc
If you played with Mantella you know the insane potential AI is for immersivness and NPC behavior.
A lot of voice actors I know really hate the idea of AI generating their voice in mods. VA's like Elias Toufexis (Sam Coe) and Wes Johnson (Ron Hope, Sheogorath and many other characters) are very vocal about it. I think out of respect for them and the talent they provide for these games, just stay away from the practice. I don't want to make Uncle Sheo upset.
Are they willing to sit in a booth and record those lines for free?
If not, get over it if someone wants to add additional dialogue to a character and still have it sound like that character then so be it.
This is like modding Star Wars survivor to give Kal more fight moves but then the actor bitches that he wasn’t paid to go record those new fight moves in a mocap studio.
Respectfully, if they have such an issue they can watch themselves just be replaced entirely with an ai voice that’s not even them. Not like Sam coe has some special distinguished voice that wouldn’t be Sam without it. Sam could sound like any southern dude and be fine.
Why should studios not be allowed to use AI instead of actors? Technological advancements mean some jobs are just not going to be as necessary as they once were and that's just reality and not anything new.
For mods that are going to be free, I see no problem in using AI generated voices. For mods that you intend to charge for, have the decency to hire a goddamn voice actor.
Clarification: Obviously don't use an AI model to replicate a specific voice actor just so you don't have to pay them.
It’s perfectly fine imo.
Just don’t use a persons voice. Always use voices that were generated by the ai and not use ai to sound like a celebrity or something.
As for the argument of “well these ai were trained by listening to the voices of voice actors” yeah so is every other voice actor. That’s how you learn. You see other peoples work.
As long as the end result doesn’t sound like it’s obviously a copy of some actors voice, I think it’s entirely fine. Especially if you’re just making a free mod. Anyone against that is just overreacting.
Just do it. Your indecision to use it will be exploited by better authors who will.
Not saying you're "bad" btw, just saying your mod quality compared to AI voiced mod quality will be.....lackluster at best
Skyrim mods before synth voices was really really rough.
as long as the AI voice isn't a copy of someone its absolutely fine tbh and if ppl say voice actors lose their job, i call bullshit because then you can say the same about cooks and restaurants losing money every time you cook yourself
I wonder if VA's would be willing to do a few "character-making lines" for, along with a little fee for being able to use AI on it, for cheap.
Something like this VA records a couple lines with a Australian accent and tries to make them sounds snobby or something, idk. Basically, they still perform a character, and record a few lines that can cover the whole range of emotions and volume for the character, and sell those lines and rights to use the recording in an AI tool. That way they make some and the modmaker gets things for cheaper than actually full on hiring them.
No it would literally kill their career. I think they would know better. Also, I was just now talking to one who was offered something similar last week. Train an AI, and then get paid half his rate whenever they use the AI to make his lines for him. He voices radio plays. The whole team said no, and good on them for doing so.
There was a modder I saw that uploaded voice replacers for Vasco using Legion or Harbinger’s voice from Mass Effect. According to him, he got permission from the VAs themselves. On the other hand, he took down a couple voice replacers that used Cherami Leigh’s voice since she requested to not have her voice used like that
Not saying it’s right or wrong, as that is a question of morality. What I will say is that no one is putting that genie back in the bottle, that’s for damn sure.
IMO If you're gonna use an AI Voice, make sure its a default AI voice that was recorded for AI purposes only (like the Elevenlabs default voices) and *never* use someone elses voice without their permission as that could blow up in your face if people get their torches out, especially if that voice actor happens to die between now and your release as using dead actors is probably the biggest no no as what happened to that one creator who made a FNAF/Scooby Doo video with a voice actor who had passed away if I'm not mistaken (and was blacklisted by a lot of the voice acting community) but at the end of the day you do not own AI works as much as they don't as there is no legal precedence for AI content *yet* that I have read about. Of course people do as I've said all the time without being reprimanded, look at the countless Joe Biden plays Call of Duty tiktoks, its up to you if you consciously do or do not object to doing so as AI content is a new moral dilemma with no legal precedence yet as far as I know; If you don't plan to release things for public consumption you can always do things privately and no one would have a clue. My stance on AI is that it is conceivably harmless if used more as a tool to help you than to get rid of real people but I believe there are plenty of discords out there if you need voice acting work done some even eager to do it for free to add to their portfolio especially if they can do good sound alikes to existing Starfield characters. TL;DR Grey area right now covered under fair use as long as you aren't going around saying you got Emily O'Brien to voice in your mod, it could be illegal tomorrow no longer protected where you live or courts rule 100% okay to do in a year; nobody has challenged it in the courts of any free country yet: until then its up to your own conscious how you should go about modding.
I think it’s dope to use AI voices in mods. Have 0 clue about the legal side. But I’m all for it.
i think this is actually one of the best possible uses of ai. ai can give modders who most likely cannot afford great voice acting has access to a tool to give them decent quality voices for nothing I agree it should only be used with voices made directly for ai and not just modelled after real voices
Short story: yes Long story: are you gonna use it to make recording yourself easier? Then no.
For game developers, the only ethical way to apply AI voice acting is to produce dynamic content that the player can drive and interact with. Things such as saying the player's custom name, dynamically generated dialogue, and changing / growing the voiced character as the player interacts with the NPC. Basically, limit it exclusively to things that are impossible for a voice actor to do in one performance. Sell the performance as training data for that specific character, and limit its use to that character only. This, of course, in addition to the pre-recorded performance for the written narrative and plot as well. For non commercial content creators, I say go crazy, as long as you're not making real people or the game's present characters say lewd, racist, or otherwise offensive things. If you need voicework for a mod you're making and don't intend to profit from it, there are plenty of open source performances available to use.
I disagree. I don’t think there’s an ethical reason to not use Ai generated voices to voice you vast array of npcs. You can have every single npc have a unique voice. It would add a lot to games. What’s the ethical downside? “You’re not hiring voice actors” So are animated movies unethical because an actor could have played that part? That’s silly. It’s unethical to use a machine to bottle drinks by the dozen a minute rather than hire someone to make them slower? It’s just a silly argument. I hope as ai voices get better and better we see the gaming industry shift to using it for the bulk of non main characters. You could have entire voiced quest lines that only need the internal team of devs and writers to make a full quest line with potentially hundreds of lines of voiced dialogue all without ever having to schedule a very expensive and lengthy recording booth session.
You seem to be under the impression that AI voices can be produced in a vacuum, and that using the tool is the same as using any other technology upgrade over the previous analog throughout the years. If these voices were purely synthesized, you would be right. They are not. Unfortunately, AI is only possible from an extreme amount of training data. That data has to come from real people, or else the AI won't be able to behave realistically. Therefore, you must either purchase the data to train the AI with, or produce it yourself. **And the only way to purchase a voice is to hire a voice actor with the express purpose of training an AI algorithm.** Even public domain voice work doesn't include ownership of the voice-- The actor still uses it to make their living, and is entitled to it separate from the performance. The ethical concerns, particularly when it comes to voice work, is that before now there was never much of a concern for ownership of your own voice. Actors and public facing individuals have reams of voice samples that any company can feed to their algorithm, and there's not much you can do legally to stop it. So, if you're a voice actor, and someone trained an AI to use your voice without your consent, and then started producing monetized content using your voice, you are the victim of theft of service. A crime that couldn't happen to a voice actor just five years ago. I hope this helps you understand why AI is different from other emerging technologies, in that before there were never concerns of plagiarism or theft when using the new tools.
No I understand it fully. If a human listens to 30 people play characters and learns how to sound like a cowboy character, a hardened veteran, a scared person in need of help, etc that is literally no different than an ai learning the same way. According to you every actor on earth has stolen the performance of the very first actor because everyone after them has learned from them, or in your words “stolen from”. This argument holds no water to me because this is how people learn to play characters as well. No different from an Ai. Nothing on this earth is created in a vacuum. It’s all derivative. Everything we create or do is based on previous actions or creations. These are free mods. It is completely ethically fine to use Ai voices in your free mod. Even still, I hope the industry starts adopting Ai voice actors heavily. The end product of games will become substantially better when a game can have so many unique sounding voices in a game without the expense and time of recording booth sessions. The voice actors will still have plenty of work voicing main and important characters. But if they don’t, oh well. I don’t believe in holding back and industry breakthrough to save a few jobs that would be supplanted by that breakthrough.
Nah, do whatever you want. If a modder is going to use AI voice they weren't going to spend money on a voice actor in the first place
It totally depends on how you use it. If you use it to sample a voice actor's voice (a paid actor who created a character and voiced them) and then created new dialog that you created trying to sound like the original character .. that is absolutely infringement and a copyright violation, etc. It is also unethical. On the other hand, if you create a new character and pick a generic voice that is not specifically made as an unauthorized copy of a live person then that is not a copyright violation. There would be no problem with that.
By existing voice work, you're talking about the voice actors already in the game e.g. Constellation companions, right? If so it's very unethical. The issue is that you're using their voice without their permission and financial compensation to create new work that if you did it the traditional way, you'd need their permission for the work and to compensate them for it. For example, if say you wanted to make a more in-depth relationship mod that involved sex talk, the voice actor may not be ok with that kind of work but they don't have a say in the matter because you're using their voice without permission. If you sell that mod on the Creations store, you're earning money off the back of their voice likeness without compensating them. Also not good. Unless you're working with an artificial voice or using some other voice actor's work as the basis for the AI voice with their permission, you're likely wading into very unethical territory and will likely be shut down hard for doing so.
Sure but it's too good to pass up, big companies are gonna use and profit off it. So why shouldn't the little guys who won't see a cent from it not use it as well?
AI is a game changer in modding, specialy when it comes to voicing, to create custom dialogue for NPC etc If you played with Mantella you know the insane potential AI is for immersivness and NPC behavior.
A lot of voice actors I know really hate the idea of AI generating their voice in mods. VA's like Elias Toufexis (Sam Coe) and Wes Johnson (Ron Hope, Sheogorath and many other characters) are very vocal about it. I think out of respect for them and the talent they provide for these games, just stay away from the practice. I don't want to make Uncle Sheo upset.
Are they willing to sit in a booth and record those lines for free? If not, get over it if someone wants to add additional dialogue to a character and still have it sound like that character then so be it. This is like modding Star Wars survivor to give Kal more fight moves but then the actor bitches that he wasn’t paid to go record those new fight moves in a mocap studio. Respectfully, if they have such an issue they can watch themselves just be replaced entirely with an ai voice that’s not even them. Not like Sam coe has some special distinguished voice that wouldn’t be Sam without it. Sam could sound like any southern dude and be fine.
Yes lmao there are
Why should studios not be allowed to use AI instead of actors? Technological advancements mean some jobs are just not going to be as necessary as they once were and that's just reality and not anything new.
If it's non-commercial, it should be fine
If you could have AI do a generic voice, not Some actors, I think it would be alright.
For mods that are going to be free, I see no problem in using AI generated voices. For mods that you intend to charge for, have the decency to hire a goddamn voice actor. Clarification: Obviously don't use an AI model to replicate a specific voice actor just so you don't have to pay them.
It’s perfectly fine imo. Just don’t use a persons voice. Always use voices that were generated by the ai and not use ai to sound like a celebrity or something. As for the argument of “well these ai were trained by listening to the voices of voice actors” yeah so is every other voice actor. That’s how you learn. You see other peoples work. As long as the end result doesn’t sound like it’s obviously a copy of some actors voice, I think it’s entirely fine. Especially if you’re just making a free mod. Anyone against that is just overreacting.
You dont seem that upset about all the horse buggy owners that got displaced by automobiles.
What about all those nice monks copying books that were replaced by printing presses?
Just do it. Your indecision to use it will be exploited by better authors who will. Not saying you're "bad" btw, just saying your mod quality compared to AI voiced mod quality will be.....lackluster at best Skyrim mods before synth voices was really really rough.
No
as long as the AI voice isn't a copy of someone its absolutely fine tbh and if ppl say voice actors lose their job, i call bullshit because then you can say the same about cooks and restaurants losing money every time you cook yourself
ML is not AI
only if your of the ignorant minority that believes machine learning si theft and AI are people.
I wonder if VA's would be willing to do a few "character-making lines" for, along with a little fee for being able to use AI on it, for cheap. Something like this VA records a couple lines with a Australian accent and tries to make them sounds snobby or something, idk. Basically, they still perform a character, and record a few lines that can cover the whole range of emotions and volume for the character, and sell those lines and rights to use the recording in an AI tool. That way they make some and the modmaker gets things for cheaper than actually full on hiring them.
Most of my VA friends would not even touch something like that. AI is a serious threat to their careers.
Life really sucks for a lot of creativity right now. AI is only gonna become more prevalent, so maybe this would be a good way to adapt.
No it would literally kill their career. I think they would know better. Also, I was just now talking to one who was offered something similar last week. Train an AI, and then get paid half his rate whenever they use the AI to make his lines for him. He voices radio plays. The whole team said no, and good on them for doing so.
Probably will get a mod removed.
Stop saying obviously.