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SAG-AFTRA Files Unfair Labor Practice Complaint Against Epic Games Due To A.I. Darth Vader
(www.gameinformer.com)
this post was submitted on 19 May 2025
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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…
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.
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.
Finally, EA Games open worlds will have something interesting for the first 3 days