How very cyberpunk, except for the fact that permission was given.
this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2023
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Permission from the family, not the person who died. Is it okay for ai actors if the actors are dead and the family wants to get paid?
CDPR originally thought they may replace him in the expansion and then go back and actually re-record his lines in the original for consistency’s sake but…no one really liked that idea, as it did not seem fair to his memory and his great performance.
I really don't like the idea of doing it for entirely new performances but it doesn't seem about the money in this case.
Well, that's where we are going.
The reaction this is getting is simply going to fuel execs who now see that people are okay with it. And if they are okay with dead actors, they will be okay with live actors in a few years after they are used to that.
The correct answer to all of this was the same answer we have had for as long as humans have performed, everyone acknowledges that the character won't continue and the media pays respect in some way for the performance the actor actually gave.
This resurrects the actor without the permission of the actor just of their family who may or may not have understood what was happening. Which is likely going to be the norm from here on out.
I don't want an AI ressurectiin of Lance Riddick in the next Horizon game either. Do you want that?
The reaction this is getting is simply going to fuel execs who now see that people are okay with it. And if they are okay with dead actors, they will be okay with live actors in a few years after they are used to that.
This is nothing new. Let's not forget Wagons East or that Pink Panther movie from the 70s.
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To be fair it is notoriously difficult to get permission from someone who has died.
If we can’t have necromancy in real life, then this will be the best we can get to bringing the dead back to life.
The actor agreed to voice the character in the base game. As far as I'm aware there is no evidence of a soured relationship with the developers, no reason to deduce he would have refused to continue voicing the character were he still alive.
It would be unethical to use a dead actor's voice in a way they would have a good reason to object to if they could, but this doesn't seem to be the case here.
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Similar situations come all the time for deceased musicians and writers. that get work released after they die. You can also see the family being proud of the legacy. It's always a mix of greed and pride, some cases go more to one side that other.
This article lacks some context. Miłogost Reczek was the voice actor for the Polish language of the game. If you played the English version of the game you would have heard the very much alive Michael Gregory as Victor Vektor.
Many commenters here are discussing the writer's and actors strikes that are in the news. Those are American unions, they have no bearing on the work of Polish voice actors who do localization work.
He also voiced Vesemir from Witcher. He was also very popular voice actor in animated movies localizations. Genuinely he was one of the few voice actors I knew by name, and the news that he died really struck me.
I was just thinking earlier today, games could probably use AI to seamlessly work the player's name into dialog. They would still hire voice actors, but insert whatever name the player chooses into the lines where it is mentioned. I feel like this isn't too far away.
World of Warcraft would benefit from this. Local processing power is quite up to the task these days, and it’s jarring to see your name on the screen but the audio says “champion” or something similar.
Maybe in 11.0…
Star field does this and it caught me complete off guard became I had used my real name.
Fallout 4 did as well, but it worked with a list of names that Codsworth could say. I'm assuming Starfield does something similar? Or is it a ton of NPCs that use the name?
Idk I didn't pick a name, I just entered my name for my character. Then I was playing and Vasco just said my name. I literally stopped in my tracks and was like "what did you just say?"
Yeah, he called me Assface.
To be fair, Vasco is a robot with a robotic / computer generated sounding voice. It's still cool, but it wouldn't take modern AI / neural network based processing to do that, any old text to speech engine could reproduce Vasco's voice.
He's voiced by Jake Green https://m.imdb.com/name/nm2482007/?ref_=tt_cl_t_4
I just saw another link farther down saying that its not actually auto generated at all. Jake Green just had to record 1011 different names.......
I thought they actually just recorded a ton of names for Fallout 4? I seem to recall hearing that they did something like 900+ different name recordings.
They did the same thing. Probably using the same list with additions. Both games have a robot be the only character who says your name. I suppose that makes it less unbelievable if you notice the splices where they add your name to an otherwise unaltered line.
Dang, the future is here.
I like the idea a lot. I can think of two problems that need to be solved for this:
- How do you pronounce the player’s name correctly?
- How do you prohibit abuse?
- Have them type it a second time phonetically, and let them test it
- If single-player? Don't. If multiplayer? Yeah... that'd be a nightmare lmao
Multiplayer doesn't make a difference, at least not noticeably, as all those shenanigans can already be done by text. You'll get reported and named "player345133" whether you misspell e.g. a forbidden slur or use a misspelling to get the slur's pronunciation.
But it's harder to detect spoken slang when people make it talk in mixed accents and more, you would have to run a talk to text engine too many different times with different filters and parameters against many different languages' lists of slang words with multiple recognizable pronunciations.
And then somebody names themselves ChatGPT and the French will laugh because that sounds like "cat farted" in their language
I recently had this in a game. Just couldn't say which one sadly.. I was really suprised it said my (character's) name. Damn...which game was it?
Starfield does this to some degree: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/starfield-names-list
It does it if you have an anglo-sounding name, which is the problem with brute forcing this.
Generative AI would be a fun solution, but it currently seems like it'd trigger a lot of controversy, sadly.
I use a piece of software called crew chief for sim racing, and it has what seems like infinite names for all different languages and regions.
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With advances in AI, Reczek’s performance could be recreated, but CDPR made sure they got permission from his family. His sons were “very supportive” of the idea, according to a Bloomberg report.
I am pretty sure his sons are fans of CP2077 too. I would give permission too if I were in their shoes - getting a new character, or a different voice for the old character is annoyingly weird when you get used to it...
Im absolutely sure I need GlaDOS (Ellen McLain) to voice my LLM digital assistant including her iconic unending font of bitter sarcasm.
It's just common sense. No rational viewer would challenge this necessity.
No, McLain is not dead, but I expect she is busy.
Should McLain get paid for it? Should McLain get a say in how her voice is used? That is the real issue with this stuff. The answers are not clear cut.
Yes and yes imo. A person's voice is part of their likeness, and people should get to decide how their likeness is used and get paid for such usage.
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Because we live in a capitalist system in which everyone who is not a studio mogul has to scrimp and save to eat, yes, McLain shouldn't have to beg on the street to stay fed and clothed. But then again the rest of us should not, and as I am incapable of earning money (in that I do a thing and someone compensates me for it) the capitalist system we live in would have me starve or succumb to the elements while I try to sleep on hostile architecture.
And while I don't expect any concern for my personal welfare, it does mean my (economic) demand for a GlaDOS Digital Assistant comes to an early and tragic end, as does the demand for many other things, since the only way to earn money is by obligations to work for rich people. (And they hate most of us.)
So, while the system we have might allow for McLain to live, I won't get to enjoy her work, or really anything, because it's all about giving our resources to those who already hold the majority of them.
Once we have social systems that allow us all to have comfortable lives, McLain might be happy doing the work for the good of the community, and for the glory of fame, and not to be richer than the rest of us.
During the COVID-19 Lockdown of 2020, a lot of people were furloughed and didn't get paychecks rather had to live on social benefits, many of whom took up hobbies that they really liked and could find a way to monetize, leading to the great resignation of 2021, which is one of the reasons we're taking unions seriously right now, so I know that some people will do art for art's sake when they don't have to spend all their time slaving to someone else for their next meal.
Yes and yes. It can get complicated but not in this case.
Think of it this way: make a televisión ad with any big movie star that's still alive. Can you do it with them acting without paying? Nope. Can you do it with ai for either their voice, face or body instead of acting and not paying them, even if the movie studio owns a certain famous character? Nope, because the character + actor face belong to both the studio and the actor.
Imagine now, the Joker 2 movie where Heath Ledger, as Joker, jokes all his jokes about living in the society.
I mean, sure, but that should be negotiated. If they’re using my likeness for free I would not be ok with that. If they’re paying me (or my family) for the use, I would give permission for that.
Right...and they did. Isn't that one of the main poinst of the article...?
Yes. This time, although it was permission from the family, not the actor. Should that be allowed?
He’s dead, I don’t think he protested too much
Depends on whether a voice is considered a copyrightable asset. If it is it would have transfered to the family when he died so they could give permission. If not CDPR legally wouldn't be required to get consent anyway. New regulation is probably going to be written to clarify issues like this.
Depends on whether a voice is considered a copyrightable asset.
It isn't, a voice is not an expression and hardly tangible, you can copyright a voice as much as you can copyright a violin, or a style of play: You can't. But as we're talking about a person and not an object it is use of someone's likeness, which is part of personality rights.
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my man got fuckin RELIC'd
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