Voice Actors Against Selling Their Voices to AI Companies

The world has been seeing a lot of issues generated by AI nowadays, which is ironic because the whole point of AI-generated material is for human convenience. The US organization SAG-AFTRA is leading a protest for video game voice actors for the same reason. Now, Japanese voice actors face the same difficulty.

Japanese voice actors are finding it quite awkward that their voice, which is the source of livelihood being sold off to companies without their permission. This article will delve into why voice actors speak against this and what their stance against these companies is.

1. Voice Actor Rights Are Being Breached

The issue came up ever since several voice actors found out that their voices were being sold to AI companies. The problem that voice actors have with this is that when their voice, which is their source of livelihood, is being exploited.

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There are other reasons to be against this, and it’s the fact that the voice manipulation done by AI is, in a way, quite disrespectful to the actor as their raw talent and skill can never be expressed by AI.

On the 7th of October, the talent management agency Aoni Production announced a partnership with CoeFront where they agreed to share vocal data from 10 voice actors like Masako Nozawa (popular for her role as Dr Kureha in One Piece) and Banjou Ginga (a popular video game voice actor).

These AI-generated voices are to be used by virtual assistants, navigation systems, robots, and medical devices. This is definitely a performer’s right violation, and voice actors aren’t sitting put with this.

2. The Voice Actor Protest

Several voice actors in Japan have come together to form a group called “No More Mudan Seisei AI”, which means no more unauthorized Generative AI. They opened social media accounts on Twitter(X), and YouTube in order to spread awareness for their cause. For this, they released a video on YouTube, asking people to listen to their plea.

In the video, voice actor Nakao Ryusei (popular for his works in Dragon Ball) expressed his shock when he found out that his voice was being sold without his consent. He also made it clear that he found it quite troublesome that his voice, which was his entire life and livelihood, was being sold. He then asked all the viewers to hear out voice actors since they were having this difficult time.

The video concluded with all 25 voice actors who joined the cause saying the name of their group in unison as a sign of resistance.

3. How The Voice Actor Protest Could Affect Anime Release

The video game strike in the US led by SAG-AFTRA is a perfect example of how things can go downhill. Due to this strike, several games like Genshin Impact have faced issues like not having English voice lines during their latest updates.

If things remain unresolved, and if more voice actors come together and boycott the industry, then we can expect several anime episodes to be delayed. This should be enough reason for anyone to understand how much of a serious issue this is for voice actors.