Since the dawn of the generative AI age, we’ve all been wondering when AI technology was going to eventually seep into actual big-name productions. At this point, we’re starting to see cases of that with the latest case involving CD Projekt Red. The company used AI to recreate the voice of a deceased Cyberpunk 2077 voice actor.
The voice actor in question is the late Miłogost Reczek, who passed away in December of 2021. He played the roles of Vesemir and Thaler in The Witcher games (another franchise from CD Projekt Red). He also provided the Polish voice of Homer Simpson in the Simpsons Movie. As far as Cyberpunk is concerned, he played the role of Viktor Vector.
CD Projekt Red recreated the voice of a deceased voice actor in Cyberpunk 2077 using AI
This might sound more scandalous than it actually is. Bloomberg (via Techradar) reports that CD Projekt gained permission to use Reczek’s vocal likeness from his family. As per the report, his sons were actually supportive of this, as something like this wouldn’t go over well with everyone.
After getting the permission to do so, CD Projekt Red went ahead with the lines. It didn’t generate the lines from scratch, however. The company hired a voice actor to read the lines, and we can guess that he had to have a similar tone to Reczek’s. After that, the company used Respeecher, an AI voice cloning platform, to make the voice sound like Reczek’s. So, you’re hearing an actual human being reading the lines. This is important because AI voices have yet to master human inflection.
Walking the line
This move might be divisive among people who are aware of the possible implications of AI in the workplace. CD Projekt Red gained proper permission from the family and used an actual human voice for the lines. This shows that the company is still considerate of those closest to Reczek. Also, it shows it still wants to pay human actors for their services.
However, this only proves how effective AI is in the field of voice acting. Most people didn’t notice that they were listening to a voice partially created with AI. We’re used to hearing AI-generated voices on low-budget YouTube and TikTok videos, but it’s reaching major big-name projects.
Voice actors rely on their roles to pay the bills. If major titles are starting to employ AI for roles, we can only guess that professional voice actors might start losing jobs. We also can’t forget about up-and-coming voice actors who are trying to break into the business. AI could potentially make it so that they don’t have a career to go to.
This is something that we’ll have to keep an eye on as time passes.
2023-10-14 15:07:25