#TouchePasMaVF, French voice actors warn of the rise of AI
They are the voices of Brad Pitt, Jim Carrey, Morgan Freeman… And they are afraid of seeing their profession disappear. “If artificial dubbing replaces us, it will no longer be our voices, human voices that you will hear in films, but robot voices.”
When talking cinema appeared at the end of the 1920s, dubbing. A practice that we find in theaters, in series and video games and which has become a French cultural habit. You just have to close your eyes to recognize their voices, they are so recognizable and associated with a great actor or character from our childhood. Who else but Damien Witecka to overtake Leonardo Dicaprio and Tobey Maguire? Or Richard Darbois to lend his voice to Buzz Lightyear and GeniusAladdin ? However, with the rise of artificial intelligence in this profession, things could perhaps change.
This week, several voice actors published a video on their respective social networks in which they call on the Minister of Culture, Rachida Dati, and spectators to sign a petition to support their demand in the face of the threats represented by AI: “Help us make our voices heard! So that VF remains a cultural exception and that we are never replaced by machines”. To date, the petition has more than 100,000 signatures.
They are the French voices of Andrew Garfield (Donald Reignoux), by Margot Robbie (Dorothée Pousseo), by Morgan Freeman (Benoît Allemane), by Jim Carrey (Emmanuel Curtil), by Brad Pitt (Jean-Pierre Michaël), the Simpson couple (Philippe Peythieu And Véronique Augereau) – the best version according to the creator of the series, Matt Groening – and many others. In this video, they expose their fear:
“If artificial dubbing replaces us, it will no longer be our voices, human voices that you will hear in films, but the voices of robots which will have been generated by the theft of our voices and without our consent.”
In October 2023, Emmanuel Karsenwho lends his voice to Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) in the series The Walking Dead revealed to France Culture having discovered a trailer for the spin-off series centered on his character which used his voice generated by artificial intelligence without his consent: “The voice really had my vocal color and my grain, I recognized myself.” Although it was made by a fan at the time when the series had not yet been an official broadcaster in France, it is not impossible to imagine that professionals could reproduce the same practice on a larger scale. .
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“They are going to kill the dubbing”Cartman takes offense at South Park in the video. In addition to talking about the theft of their voices, the actors are worried about the disappearance of their profession but also those of technicians, translators – these shadow professions which allow quality dubbing. As reported by the site Allocinated, 12,500 jobs are potentially threatened in France by the advance of AI. With more powerful tools like IA HeyGen or Deepdub, the original voices can be preserved and dubbed directly into several languages. But what about the emotion of comedy? Facial expressions and humor in the voice?
“He’s not a genius!” exclaims the Genie of the lamp. “Great dubbing comes with great responsibilities”adds Peter Parker.
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It has been several months since the #TouchePasMaVF movement, supported by the professional association Les Voix and the French performing artists' union (SFA-CGT), has been mobilizing to regulate the use of artificial intelligence in the audiovisual sector. . On their website, we can read their demands: “For dubbing created by humans for humans”. They add :
“We ask the State to intervene and regulate the development of generative AI in order to preserve both the jobs of an entire sector and the artistic quality of our work.”
In the United States, the use of AI has recently made a lot of noise. SAG-AFTRA has confirmed that AI will be better supervised and controlled with regard to the voice of actors. Last year, all of Hollywood was paralyzed by a historic strike rallying actors, writers and directors against artificial intelligence in culture. Screenwriters denounced scripts written by machines, directors feared a future cinema made by robots and actors denounced the use of their voice and image without their consent in films or, even worse, scams – like Tom Hanks, victim of this flight.
Attacked on all fronts, the AI still proved useful at certain times – notably by giving back his voice to Val Kilmer, suffering from throat cancer, to Top Gun: Maverick.
Although the strike has not reached the French film industry to the same extent, artists are mobilizing and hoping to make their – human – voices heard.
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