Ned Luke, the actor who portrays Michael in GTA 5 (one of three playable protagonists), has called out an AI company called WAME for advertising a chatbot that claims to let users have "a realistic voice conversation with Michael De Santa".
As reported by PCGamesN, Luke minced no words, responding to a WAME post on Twitter and writing: "This is f**king bulls**t WAME. Absolutely nothing cool about ripping people off with some lame computer estimation of my voice. Don't waste your time on this garbage." The actor tagged Grand Theft Audio developer Rockstar Games, as well as the debatably reliable actor's union, SAG-AFTRA.
This seemed to do the trick, and WAME quickly took down the offending chatbot, along with all related promotional material advertising the service. The company put out a response: "In light of the recent controversy surrounding the utilization of Mr Ned Luke’s voice in our application, we at WAME wish to express our profound understanding and concern."
The company goes on to say that the "incident has highlighted the intricate interplay" between the burgeoning technology and the artists it shamelessly steals from, or as WAME puts it: "Between the advancement of AI technology and the ethical and legal realms."
What do you think of Luke's response and WAME's reasoning? Something has to give in to the ongoing contest between artists and AI as stories like this one become increasingly commonplace. Let us know what you think in the comments section below.
[source twitter.com, via pcgamesn.com]
Comments 19
Good on him. If maybe they approached him first to see if it was okay then maybe things would have been different but I like his no nonsense straight to the point response. We need more straight talking people in the world.
maybe it’s karma lol
I always chuckle whenever I see someone calling themselves an "AI artist". Even moreso when they start up a patreon and try to monetize their "work". Some people will do literally anything to avoid working an honest job.
It’s to the point where anyone can generate an AI voice from a few clips, in seconds. This isn’t going away, regardless of how people react to it. Getting as upset as some people have gotten over AI is just wasted energy. I understand the actions of unions trying to protect their workers, and I stand with those unions. But the genie is absolutely out of the bottle. Now it’s a matter of learning to live within the new world.
Well he and other artists can be and are upset all they want, it's still the future no matter if you like it or not
@BeerIsAwesome uh nope. this has nothing to do with a nft hype. this is actually changing the future of art and entertainment. regulation and copyright doesn't change the fact that artist will become (almost) extinct.
So... I'm looking forward this all AI bull*hit ends and AI will be banned as same as cloning. Using AI is pinacle of laziness.
@Grimwood I'm waiting on the day when AI replaces the people who created the AI and all the people who are pro AI. Let's see how great they think it is when it's their living that's on the line.
Ah hahaha I'm all for this I can craft a game to my needs not the nonsense we're getting lot of great writers and directors not getting work cause their not aligned with some nonsense that's disgraceful not this.
This is all BS man... plagarism is plagarism, people stealing stuff from other people with their likeness and or voices, is straight BS!! im glad they are calling this stuff out..
@glassmusic wait until AI is used nefariously.. Like , if an AI voice, with a world leader on it, says that he is going to BOMB their enemies, lets see how it goes over. Im sure this will happen one day, because people are morons, that think they are soo innovative and saavy, and they let their stupidity end their existence.. "STOP PLAYING with things you know NOTHING about"
AI, NFT is stealing content and passing it of as your own it's a blatant way to steal from artists and voice actors nothing is created it's mixed up stolen pieces of art.
Voiced AI is even just as outrageous it's a way to make use of voices that are not even their own a easy way to cut out the actors and get wealth with even a smaller percentage of the world.
@glassmusic There is nothing created with AI give it a blanc slate with no content and could not make anything.
@Northern_munkey also, if they approached the actual owner of the character and IP itself.
They didn't advertise to speak with Ned Luke, so would have got absolutely spanked by R* and TakeTwo if they kept it and those companies were bothered about other companies trying to make money off of their IP's, even if Ned had allowed use of his voice, which he didn't lol.
It's just dumb in so many ways to try this on
I want it to be known that I stand with voice actors 100%. At least until the robots take over completely. At that point please let it be known that I was always pro-robot.
Isn't this why they are striking because film companies etc will use AI to fill in the gaps for voice work. Like they will try to own the characters all the way down to the voice or something like that and then use AI to basically continue that character after the first piece of work and never have to hire that person again.
@Northern_munkey The added layer is that he doesn't own the copyright to his voice recordings used in the training of the AI, Rockstar does. So really they need Rockstar's permission and not his. That's assuming they need permission at all though. If the AI is used to make a noninfringing output.. it is likely fair use anyways.
@nomither6 Karma for what?
They are using his likeness, he should sue them.
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