AI revival of deceased actors' voices should still involve people, company says

Respeecher CEO Alex Serdiuk told Axios, on a Zoom call from his office in Kyiv, that the company's projects are all "purely and completely ethical."

• He emphasized that Respeecher always ensures that it has permission to use the voice its AI is trained on. (In the Cyberpunk case, the original actor's family was not paid. "Miłek's family didn't want any compensation, they treated it all as tribute to their late family member," a studio rep told Axios.)
• Serdiuk also is adamant about keeping people involved in the process. Today's text-to-speech systems that exclude people can't generate realistic enough AI-generated lines, he says.
• "You cannot tell text-to-speech exactly what emotion you need," Serdiuk says. The way he sees it, human actors, recording the lines that the AI can then manipulate, are essential to providing that emotion.

The key bit. Right now, AI being used to replace voice actors is one of the most contentious issues in the entertainment industry, particularly when it comes to replacing specific actors.

This stands out though and feels like the most "ethical" approach I've seen. In the specific case that spawned this article, one of the voice actors for the Polish dub of Cyberpunk 2077, Miłogost "Miłek" Reczek, died in 2021, so CD Projekt Red needed new lines for the recent expansion. They got permission from the deceased actor's family, and hired another voice actor to do the new lines before using AI to modify the voice to sound like him.

This case comes across more as genuinely respecting the original actor's performance than wanting to profit off his brand. It's one of the more positive uses of AI, and I like Respeecher's CEO's sentiment about continuing to involve human actors. Emotions are a complex thing, and AI can't perfectly replicate specific emotions without a LOT of knowledge on how to use the AI. I think it's generally easier for a director to instruct a human being than to get an AI to emulate a specific emotional tone. This approach feels like it supplements voice acting more than outright replace it.

As the article notes though, this is still tricky territory due to consent. A lot of big names in entertainment are looking to profit off major names for as little cost as possible, particularly by cutting out the voice actors entirely. But I still thought it's an interesting example of positive use cases for AI in voice acting. The article also mentions Respeecher modifying Mark Hamill's voice to sound younger, and the idea of applying an actor or singer's voice to dubs of their works.