Choosing the Right Voice: Human Actor vs. AI
The entry of the topic of AI into the public discourse over 2023 has been of course phenomenal and ubiquitous. And within the voiceover community, the issue has been particularly contentious.
At the macro level, the use of AI will herald a seismic shift, basically, the next industrial revolution as companies and individuals avail themselves of its ability to either function as a virtual assistant and execute everything from mundane emails to travel planning and/or performing repetitive tasks that involve seas of data on which lightening quick value-added assessments can be had. Collectively, these will all add to the bottom line and hopefully, lift us all (though wealth inequality will unfortunately, only exacerbate).
Within this arena, both consumers of AI and the voiceover community have decisions to make.
AI-Generated Voices: Efficiency and Consistency
For the consumers of AI, companies have of course discovered and now use, to varying degrees, AI-generated voices that confer significant benefits. With AI voices, content creators need no longer worry about finding, vetting, negotiating with, paying, and encountering fatigue from a human VO talent. After the initial AI investment - and there are several on offer from the likes of Eleven Labs, Lovo, Murf.AI, and Synthesis to name a few - consumers can expect to enjoy greater financial returns. Counter to these arguments is the fact that customers may react less than favorable to voices that they perceive as lacking the warmth and authenticity of a human voice whether on a customer service phone line or when consuming learning content. And an AI resource may not necessarily be the right solution for all companies in all use cases. This may be perfectly fine when delivering content that is more staid in its delivery, but for more nuanced and demanding acting performances, current solutions may fall short. Already, I’ve heard of anecdotal evidence of companies adopting AI solutions only to backtrack to human actors on realizing the creative handicap that they imposed on themselves. Consumers of VO talent therefore, must assess the array of possible solutions with a clear-eyed awareness of their own needs, and the preferences and tolerances of their end users.
Human Voice Actors: The Art of Emotion and Interpretation
For the voice over community, the reaction to the ingress of AI into their midst has been swift and largely one-note…resistance at all costs. ‘Don’t allow our voices to be used for AI training or machine learning’ goes the mantra or just say no. And to be frank, this reaction has not been unwarranted especially since the legal landscape does not recognize our voice prints as our own intellectual property that warrants protection. Accordingly, unless you’re a celebrity, it seems, we as a community have few, if any current rights to safeguard our voices from unauthorized AI use. Hopefully, with the efforts of NAVA - led by the indefatigable Tim Friedlander and Carin Gilfry - this will change sooner rather than later. But the middle ground should not be overlooked.
The fact of the matter is that AI could also prove to be a valuable source of income for VO actors and in fact, prove to be the opposite of the existential threat as it is widely perceived. Carin Gilfry herself has acknowledged to licensing her voice for AI use to voice a locale’s weather conditions. As hardworking as she no doubt is, it would be physically impossible for her to record real-time updates for presumably dozens of cities. By licensing her voice in this way, she avails herself of a passive income stream which, I might add, we should all consider if given the opportunity.
Bottom Line
To me, the bottom line is this…that that against the background of an evolving technological and legislative state, how and whether parties leverage AI is an individual one, but one that should at least be duly considered rather than rejected outright. Depending on their area of work, VO actors will be impacted in some form or other, some adversely. Or not. Similarly, content providers and consumers of VO must keep attuned to the changing possibilities and not be afraid to make decisions that buck the trend. These are interesting times indeed.
