There are a thousand articles out there talking about the plusses and minuses of technology. ANY technology can be transformational, and any technology can be disruptive. I want to start by saying that no technology is inherently good or bad. So, before I jump into discussing AI and why you should care about hiring actual human VO actors rather than trying to save a buck and using AI “voices”. I’d like to give you a bit of insight into my background and perspective on AI and the current push to make it mainstream.

First of all, early in the 90’s I worked for a plucky little tech startup in the internet space. Back when the internet was mostly the domain of universities and it was predominantly text based. We were innovating and building stuff for the masses that had never really existed before. Chat Rooms, instant messaging, online gaming, an easy to use web browser, a simple interface to use the “internet”, ever increasing connection speeds, etc. It was an exciting time, and we were on the bleeding edge of technology. Every day was exciting, we were inventing new stuff for the “internet” and it was amazing. And we had the best of intentions. I adored the time I worked there. But even back then in the early days, people were already being people.

One of the projects I was involved in worked with Law enforcement and our legal department to help find and terminate accounts of folks using the service for illegal and terrible things. Even in the early 90’s it was appalling and hard to stomach. Take a look around today and it easy to see that the internet has just gotten worse over the years. So when I speak of technology, I’m not just spewing random uninformed opinions. I’ve been there, and done that, and I’ve even got the staff pin for the first million members and the jacket for hitting 5 million members.

Please believe me…

Technology companies are rarely interested in making the world a better place. They are in it for the money. First to market with a “groundbreaking” product means huge bonuses and payouts and profits. There is honestly very little concern for the repercussions of those new bits of technology. The story is that AI is here to make the world better. So I want to know why they are rolling it out and promoting it for artistic uses like “generating” art and illustrations, and building AI tools to do the work of voice actors and video game actors and writers and artists and creative people? Why not use AI and promote AI to offload some of the tedious and repetitive tasks so us Humans will have time to actually make art?

Sadly, tech companies are fond of aiming for he low hanging fruit. The reality is that not everyone is an artist. It takes time and practice and commitment. So, it’s more profitable to build “artistic” AI tools so people can be lazy and “do art” without actually having to invest any time into learning how to do it. New technology means you don’t have to hire a human because supposedly AI is cheaper. (And we all know that for some folks cheaper is better.)

Tech companies do things because they figure they can make money on it. It doesn’t matter who gets hurt or how it affects humans and the world in general. Tech likes to cloak their money grabs with pretty language about making the world better. But it’s all about the money. Capitalism, amirite? They figure that they can, so they will, and never really think about whether they should. Keep in mind the mantra of technology for years was “move fast and break stuff”.

And lest you think that era is over.

Lets flash back to last year when the CEO of OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT told congress that AI could be dangerous and congress should regulate it.

“We think that regulatory intervention by governments will be critical to mitigate the risks of increasingly powerful models,”

-Sam Altman

Now this is the CEO of the company making the AI. And instead of taking the steps INSIDE the company to insure that the models are safe and used responsibly, he is instead encouraging Congress to regulate it. The same Congress that has an average age of almost 60. That for the most part doesn’t seem to actually understand how the internet works, much less AI. The “governing body” that managed to only pass 27 pieces of legislation in 2023.

By the time Congress gets around to regulating AI, the heads of those tech companies will have already cashed out and moved on to other things.

So what does that have to do with Voiceover?

Everything really. Companies are offering AI models that can be used to generate human sounding voices, and offering these services for much less than the costs of hiring actual human talent. But guess what? Those models are not “generated” speech like they would have you believe. “Generative AI” is a tech buzzword that obscures what these models really are. Plagiarism engines. You see, EVERY current AI model has been trained on existing data scraped from the internet with ZERO permission or compensation to the original creators. There is no such thing as “Generative AI”. AI cannot create anything on it’s own. It can only remix existing things that it’s been trained on. (Trained on without consent or compensation to the original authors.)

But voice actors are expensive, budgets are tight these days…

I get it. Everyone is trying to save a buck. So why should you hire actual human voice actors for your projects?

• You are an ethical company and wouldn’t dream of stealing someone else’s work for your products/projects. AI models are all based on plagiarized work. (And AI Companies know that so they fund “research” so then can then license the data from the researchers they funded.)
• You currently cannot copyright AI generated work. Per the US Copyright office and federal courts:  There is no copyright protection for works created by non-humans, including machines. (So anything you use AI for you can’t protect with a copyright.)
• Voice actors can convey meaning and emotion through HOW they read your scripts. AI cannot express emotions in a script.
• Human talent can bring passion and excitement to a script. AI can be polite and friendly, but lacks any actual emotions.
• Human actors can deploy irony and sarcasm through tone and pace. AI just can’t do that.
• Voice actors can react to the natural flow of a conversation in a script. AI is just reading your words back to you and it sounds scripted.
• Humans can use facial expressions and body movements to reinforce emotions in your script. AI has no physicality available at all.
• Voice actors can build personal connections with your audience because we share context and experiences.
• Real people behind a microphone understand context and content. AI is reading words through stolen voices.
• You can direct a Human voice talent on a live session, which will get you to the perfect read for your project faster.
• Human Voice talent have a smaller environmental footprint, and thus are better for the environment. AI uses massive amounts of power and water to run the servers. For example, a search driven by generative AI uses four to five times the energy of a conventional web search.
• Recent studies show users usually prefer the authenticity of real human creativity over AI generated content.

So is AI really cheaper? Is it worth risking your project, your brand and your business on?

When you really look, the benefits of hiring human talent far outweigh the minimal cost savings of AI. At least from this humans perspective anyways…