Generative AI is rapidly becoming more prevalent in games today with publishers pushing to cut costs and replace human work with machine-generated replacements. Embark Studios’ massively popular Arc Raiders uses shoddy AI voices for its entire cast, and Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is littered with low-tier AI “art”.
Speaking at The Golden Joysticks, video game actor Jennifer English pushed against the inclusion of AI in video games. When asked about the inclusion of generative AI in gaming, the actor simply responded: “don’t”.
Via GamesRadar, English explained that AI may be able to spin up something quickly without the multiple attempts a human performance might need – although, the sheer number of prompts used for Coca Cola’s awful AI ad show that’s currently not the case – but the actor explained that those flaws are what make performances human.
“I get it, that AI is a tool. I get it,” the actor continued. “But not for… not to replace creativity. Mistakes are beautiful. Flaws are wonderful. Keep them in. Keep it human.” English concluded that studios should just “be cool”, urging people making games “don’t be weird”.
English isn’t alone in her criticism of AI replacing performers in the games industry. The actor’s Baldur’s Gate 3 co-star Neil Newbon, who plays the vampire Astarion, also explained that AI could never replicate the “happy accidents” that human performances do.
“You know, I spoke to a lot of devs, I know a lot of devs, and they don’t want to use AI because it’s sh*t,” Newbon told RadioTimes earlier this year. “It doesn’t work very well, it takes a lot of effort to get something that’s half-decent. Even with the modern [AI-generated] things that I’ve seen recently, it’s like, ‘Yeah, okay, great. You can make AI [content] and what? Like, what? Where’s the joy in it?’ I’m not interested in that.”
“You can always tell it’s [got] something slightly off, it’s not right,” he continued. “Even if it comes to a point where you can’t tell the difference, so what? You know, why not make it with people? Why not have more fun? I’m not interested in seeing that stuff, because it’s synthetic. It’s not real. It doesn’t have the ‘happy accident’ possibility and capability that are those great moments in film, TV, theatre, games, where nobody can predict [what’s going to happen], it just happened. It was magical.”
Some of the most iconic scenes in all of cinema came from accidental flubs or ad-libs by their performers. For example, DiCaprio’s performance in Django Unchained saw him cut his hand on accident; Viggo Mortensen screaming in agony in The Lord of the Rings; and, my personal favourite, Rutger Hauer’s beautiful “Like Tears In Rain” monologue from Blade Runner – one of the best scenes ever put to film.
There will, unfortunately, be more games with AI voices in the future. However, they will not replace the best performances, and with individual voice actors like the entire cast of both Clair Obscur and Baldur’s Gate 3, fans who actually respect art and artists will always flock to the games that support them.
