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Like many performers, Hank Azaria is concerned about the proliferation of artificial intelligence. The technology continues to improve, and decent vocal dupes are already here. And with decades of voice acting work contributed to The Simpsons, it’s not out of the question that an AI model could train on Azaria’s voice and get really, really good at copying it. “So, if I’m being honest, I am a little worried,” he writes in a new opinion piece for The New York Times. “This is my job. This is what I love to do, and I don’t want to have to stop doing it.”
Azaria has arguments as to why A.I. could never capture what a person’s voice can. Voiceover work requires commitment and physicality, he explains, pointing to times where he’s thrown a punch or mimicked chewing on a cigar for a performance. Further, “a voice is not just a sound,” he writes. His voices are layered impressions of other people and his own memories and observations of their personalities and character. “There’s so much of who I am that goes into creating a voice. How can the computer conjure all that?”
In the short term, Azaria believes we’ll be able to identify the “lack of humanness” in an AI voice, but he acknowledges that “in our distracted era, it’s possible that people might not catch on to the difference.” And not only might AI offer believable mimicry, but it can feasibly offer a hundred line reading options near instantaneously, abilities that threaten the livelihood of a voice actor. “I think we’ll still need someone who in his mind and heart and soul knows what needs to be done. A.I. can make the sound, but it will still need people to make the performance,” he writes. “Will the computer ever understand emotion on its own, what’s moving and what’s funny? Now we’re getting into science fiction – because for that, I think, the A.I. would have to be alive.”
Still, it makes him “sad to think about” a future where AI pushes actors out of the recording booth, he writes. “Not to mention, it seems just plain wrong to steal my likeness or sound — or anyone else’s.” You can read Azaria’s full piece here.
