SOME VIDEO GAME ACTORS ARE LETTING AI CLONE THEIR VOICES. THEY JUST DON'T WANT IT TO REPLACE THEM

If you are battling a video game goblin who speaks with a Cockney accent, or asking a gruff Scottish blacksmith to forge a virtual sword, you might be hearing the voice of actor Andy Magee.

Except it's not quite Magee's voice. It's a synthetic voice clone generated by artificial intelligence.

As video game worlds get more expansive, some game studios are experimenting with AI tools to give voice to a potentially unlimited number of characters and conversations. It also saves time and money on the "vocal scratch" recordings game developers use as placeholders to test scenes and scripts.

The response from professional actors has been mixed. Some fear that AI voices could replace all but the most famous human actors if big studios have their way. Others, like Magee, have been willing to give it a try if they’re fairly compensated and their voices aren’t misused.

“I hadn’t really anticipated AI voices to be my break into the industry, but, alas, I was offered paid voice work, and I was grateful for any experience I could get at the time,” said Magee, who grew up in Northern Ireland and has previously worked as a craft brewery manager, delivery driver and farmer.

He now specializes in voicing a diverse range of characters from the British Isles, turning what he used to consider a party trick into a rewarding career.

AI voice clones don’t have the best reputation, in part because they’ve been misused to create convincing deepfakes of real people — from U.S. President Joe Biden to the late Anthony Bourdain — saying things they never said. Some early attempts by independent developers to add them to video games have also been poorly received, both by gamers and actors — not all of whom consented to having their voices used in that way.