March 11, 2021 - 2:30pm
Bart Simpson first appeared on our screens in 1989. And yet he is still a 10-year-old boy.
Cartoon shows get away with their floating timelines because their voice actors age offscreen. That’s why shows like The Simpsons, South Park and Family Guy can keep going for decades — in contrast to even the most popular non-cartoon sitcoms.
Can you imagine the central characters of Friends still sharing a New York apartment into their fifties? Well, yes, given the dynamics of property market — but it wouldn’t be the same show. The residents of Springfield, however, are still in the springtime of their lives.
That said, not even voice actors are immortal. If The Simpsons is to keep going for ever, then its actors will have to be replaced eventually. Of course, it’s easier recasting a cartoon character than a live action role — you just need to find someone who can do the voice. However, before long there could be another option: get a computer to do it instead.
In a fascinating piece for Wired, Amit Katwala explores the implication of using AI deep fake technology to voice cartoon characters. It’s already the case that computer voices sound more like real people than robots — just ask Alexa or Siri. But powered by machine learning, the technology is advancing all the time.
Katwala describes an AI model that can learn to imitate particular voices within a few hours — even if the result is a “little emotionally flat”. However, actorly intonations are ultimately sound patterns too. With the right technology, they can be broken down into their component parts and reassembled in whatever new pattern is required.
One can foresee a future in which human actors are done away with all together, and writers and directors essentially become computer programmers.
Katwala looks into the legal ramifications. For instance, who ultimately owns the intellectual property rights to a voice? But I can foresee an even thornier issue: the politics of race.
The big American cartoon shows are no strangers to racial controversy. In 2020, a string of white actors announced that they’d no longer be voicing non-white characters — such as Apu in The Simpsons, Cleveland in Family Guy and Missy in Big Mouth.
Even if the characterisation is not considered to be demeaning in itself, the emerging consensus is that using a white actor for a non-white cartoon role is depriving non-white actors of work and appropriates non-white identities.
But what happens if the role is taken by a computer instead? That too is depriving non-white actors of work. Would this be OK if enough white actors are replaced too — or would it only be OK if enough of the programmers of the AI system are non-white? Furthermore, would a non-white character voiced by a white actor become more acceptable if a computer were to take over the role?
Rather like The Simpsons, this one will run-and-run.
Peter Franklin is Associate Editor of UnHerd. He was previously a policy advisor and speechwriter on environmental and social issues.
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SubscribeWe seem to be losing sight of the fact that the whole point of acting is to pretend to be someone you’re not. At this rate, it won’t be long before Hamlet can only be played by actual Princes of Denmark.
An amusing ongoing and somewhat related case of the translation of the “poem” used at Biden`s inauguration, where neither a Dutch person of indeterminate gender nor a Spaniard who had translated Homer and Shakespeare were deemed qualified (white, you see) to do justice to the wonderful verse.
Come on, it is wonderful, you Philistines – was that someone sniggering? you at the back, was that you, boy ? how dare you?
This is why SETI never finds any, AI, once a civilization gets to making AI, it goes extinct in a generation. To AI we will either be pets or cockroaches, but they will rule supreme, and with us at their machine will. I have refused to own a cell phone since they began, I cannot use a smart phone as I never have except where someone hands one to me to answer some question to who ever is calling them. F*** Cell Phones, you people fiddling with them all day are owned by them, not them by you.
Tacitus said something along the lines (speaking about the Romans in Britian) ‘we give then baubles, clothes, baths, Latin, and they think it sophistication, not knowing it is their chains.
You little phone clutching desk bunnies, how have you allowed your humanity to be destroyed by this toy!
Thanks. So true.
Tacitus was wrong on one point. They gave us Latin. Some Britons learnt to use a written language to communicate their ideas across time. Bede’s History of the English People was originally composed in Latin and is considered one of the most important original references on Anglo-Saxon history and has played a key role in the development of an English national identity. What did the Romans ever do for us?
I quit watching TV and movies over a decade ago. Precovid I would occasionally go into Seattle to see live theater. I stay out of the city and live old normal today. Why do people think this kind of thing is valuable to their lives? I would much rather connect, socialize, do business with people locally. The people I do spend time with seem to be more connected to life and nature. They seem to be happier and mentally healthier. At some point do people realize it is best to disengage with the matrix, pull your money out of the stock market, start investing in the life and world around you? The part of the world that you can actually have some control over. Why be nothing but a consumer of big tech and big finance? If the billionaires want everybody glued to a Screen and receiving what they need by Amazon drone what kind of life is that? Past time to unplug from this top down totalitarian society.
David Oyelowo is black. He voiced a white character in Star Wars Rebels.
It has become a mine field that no one can safely navigate. The safest policy will soon be to remove all human voices and actors from the screen and replace them with with AI. Cheaper too
As an voice artist, I have seen quite a few auditions which explicitly ask for a black sounding voice. It is inconceivable that any client would ask for a white sounding voice. Just an observation.
I think AI is already on the way for some voice overs too, and there are apparently sites where one can get such a product by typing in your script. I do however like to think there is something unique and unquantifiable which an experienced voice artist can add!
Certain great actors can read a telephone directory and make it interesting.
“Writers and directors”? It won’t be a lot longer before these roles can also be automated, at least for run-of-the mill kinds of productions.
Well we already have AI voiced Politicians.