AI is a moral conundrum in itself. It’s hard to justify its usage, and the only times people do find reasons for its application, they cite “productivity” as the end-all be-all of our modern, ever-corporatized world. But there could be proper and respectful and meaningful ways to use artificial intelligence, though all that could also be a very slippery slope.
As Game File reports, The Witcher 3‘s Polish Geralt of Rivia actor, Jacek Rozenek, was set to reprise his role for Songs of the Past, TW3‘s upcoming expansion pack. However, Rozenek had suffered a stroke in 2019, losing his speech altogether for several months. As of 2021, Rozenek recovered somewhat and managed to record a few extra lines for The Witcher 3‘s next-gen update, but even that brief work left him utterly exhausted.
The studio was more than eager to bring him back for Songs of the Past, but they soon discovered his voice was much rougher and lower than before, and since this new expansion would require a ton of entirely new and fairly violent voice lines for combat and other scenes, CDPR got in touch with a Ukrainian AI company, Respeecher, all with the actor’s own blessing.
Respeecher had already helped CDPR emulate the Polish voice for Cyberpunk’s Viktor as his actor, Miłogost Reczek, had died in 2021. However, this case will be altogether different, as Rozenek would still be doing the lines, but with Respeecher applied to tune his voice to make it more similar to how he sounded before.
Game File’s Stephen Totilo believes the difference is quite significant and that this altered voice sounds much closer to Rozenek’s original performance. However, even CDPR is aware of the ethical implications of using AI, especially in voice acting, but it does believe this is one of those instances where applying it is quite acceptable.
I don’t know if I agree with that statement necessarily. I mean, Rozenek is still doing the lines himself, so why not allow for change? It’s been 12 years since the original game’s performances were captured, and it’s not like we can stop people from aging, especially when such extraordinary things as Rozenek’s health issues happen.
I was at Gamescom this year and saw Songs of the Past in English. Doug Cockle, who also suffered from cancer for a while between Blood and Wine and SotP, also had his voice altered quite a bit. He sounds a lot rougher than before, and in some instances his voice range is actually higher than he might have been aiming for. It’s different, to say the least, but I don’t see why AI would be used to make him sound like he were 12 years younger. He isn’t. The world isn’t.
I guess this was at least done with the acquiescence and blessing of the actor himself, so in some sense it is as ethical as can be, but I don’t think it’s a really good idea to set a precedent that voice actors cannot mature and change and allow their voices to alter because they wouldn’t sound right anymore, and especially so in circumstances where you just decide to make another expansion for a 12-year-old game.
