Hank Azaria, known for voicing multiple characters in The Simpsons, has given his thoughts on how AI may affect careers like his in the future.
In a video for The New York Times, Azaria records the voice he uses for the character of Moe in The Simpsons, to see how well AI can recreate it. Within the video, Azaria likens the future of AI in the voice acting industry to how streaming has currently impacted music – if something is readily available for free or at a low cost, he feels many people opt to use it, despite the ethics behind it.
“I think there’s a humanness that the AI can’t do right now – at least vocally, and may never be able to do – that involves a character’s motivation, certain emotions, subtleties of physicality, facially or otherwise, that add up to a human being,” Azaria says.
Looking to the future, he adds, “People are going to listen to and enjoy and watch what they like, and they’re not going to care whether AI generated it or a human generated it, or some combination of the two. Right now, what AI generates by itself as Moe the bartender or anything else isn’t going to cut it. But if it does start to cut it, people are going to listen to it, and they’re going to be grateful that it’s so readily available.
“Look what happened to the music industry. Do you think I cried a tear because the record industry reinvented itself? I got to listen to all the music for free all of a sudden,” he explains. “I don’t think people are going to feel much differently about any of this.”
You can watch the full video below:
Currently, the UK government is considering proposed changes to copyright law, which could allow AI developers to mine from creators’ content on the internet. The suggested change would mean creative works could be used to develop AI models unless the rights holders actively opt out. A number of musicians have since spoken out about the suggested changes, including Paul McCartney, Elton John, and Max Richter.
Richter made his thoughts on the matter known earlier this week with a speech to MPs calling for greater protection for music creators: “Music is the closest thing humanity has to magic,” he said, “But all of this will fade into history unless we support creators’ rights because, unless artists can be fairly rewarded for their work through copyright, there is no future for human creators.”
