“Is my voice out there in the modding and voice-changing community? Yes. Do I have any control over what my voice can be used for? Not at the moment.”
David Menkin most recently starred in Final Fantasy 16 as Barnabas Tharmr, following work in Lego Star Wars, Valorant, Assassin’s Creed and more. And like many other voice actors in the games industry, he’s concerned about the increasing use of AI.
“AI is a tool, and like any tool, it requires regulation,” Menkin says. “We simply want to know what our voices will be used for and be able to grant or withdraw consent if that use is outside the scope of our original contract. And if our work is making your AI tool money, we want to be fairly remunerated.”
That certainly seems a fair request. But many believe regulations around AI are far behind the speed at which the technology is progressing – something the UK actors’ union Equity is now making moves to change.
The use of AI in the development of games is already a huge topic – as Eurogamer’s Chris Tapsell reported on from GDC, especially in the art and script-writing spaces. For voice actors, it presents a range of problems – including the worrying trend of using actors’ voices in deepfakes without consent.