AI Will Destroy Voice Actors and the Gamers Will Cheer
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Much like with any other art form, I actually don't think that voice actors are going to go away.
The issue is that low-tier voice actor work (particularly quick translations, or unimportant characters, or games that didn't originally have voice actors) will utilize AI voice-overs. The actors themselves will still continue.
Honestly, given the rest of the comments on the thread, I think you all have been completely duped by the AI bubble, as well as Leftist historical narratives on labor and automation.
AI is not going to end the field, or even their jobs. It's going to make voicework more efficient, and it's going to cull the useless, and benefit the productive.
When it comes to voice, current AI models are almost indistinguishable from real people. The main thing is that they're actually too good. They sound too perfect, which few people actually naturally sound like. I'd imagine that it won't be long before a gaming company could feed in a script, have it output the whole thing using various different voices and then just have some people check the output for accuracy and quality.
They aren't indistinguishable. As you noticed, they basically have their own accent because their speech is so stiff, they can't intonate properly on the right words to convey the right emphasis and connotation, and if you listen closely you can even hear the combination of tones over-lapping each other incorrectly.
That being the case, I would expect that you would want script lines to be used for many bits of filler or useless dialogue, but you still want voice actors to act, as good ones have a mastery of linguistics, emotion, and noise.
I've seen games that were heavily AI, and actually voice acting is the worst feature of them.
That's where the industry will be for a while yeah.
This could be the case in places where the law regulates it as such. For example Debra Wilson can license her voice and sell that to even more productions than she has time to do VO for. I still think that will only last another generation though, until the current actors die out and the tech is perfected. Then AI voices will take over completely. The uncanny voice issues you're talking about are an engineering problem, not hard physics problems, and not qualities monopolized by the human soul.
I don't agree, it's like saying digital art will end the use of paints. No, not really.
These aren't technical problems. They are meta-physical problems. They are problems of human expressions, holding unspoken context, and the containing information about human relationships (with other people or things), that are not well documentable or quantifiable by a program running a simulacrum of a person's voice.
AI is being treated like it is something fundamentally unknowable as a technological advance, but it isn't. In every single instance where automation has been introduced it was an increase in human productivity and efficiency for economic purposes. It did not end fundamental human expressionism. Acoustic instruments were not eliminated by electric ones. CGI did not remove the existence of practical effects. Movies and Radio did not end the existence of Plays or Opera.
Unlike economic trade-craft. Human expression has no "efficiency requirement". The ice industry uses far fewer people than it once did, even to the point where most of all ice in the US is generated by machine. But anything involving human expression is never operating off of an efficiency requirement. Art, in particular, has no efficiency requirement at all. It's purpose is metaphysical, not material. There is no real productivity improvement focus. Techniques can be streamlined, but archaic methods of expression are not eliminated simply because you can "produce more expression more efficiently", that's a total misunderstanding of the concept.
Voice Actors will still be used, and I absolutely agree with your point that VA's are probably going to do some kind of personal AI library that will actually be legally enshrined as their own personal property (that a studio could then purchase and train AI off of in order to replicate their voice for a price... that will be very interesting to see the law examine this concept). However, it is still acting. And as such, it will never go away. AI will just do what every other automation does: eliminate the least useful parts of the activity.
Oh I dont think there won't by ANY voice actors, just that they will be the exception. A selling point for certain market segments in fact. "Oh wow this production features a super famous HUMAN voice actor." VA, like the visual arts, will become more like a high-value craft trade making bespoke creations. It won't be the industry standard, for better or worse.
We'll have to agree to disagree on the metaphysical aspect. Perhaps I just don't hold (voice) actors in high enough esteem. I admit they have a talent that I don't, but they might as well be advanced parrots. It's not an issue of denying the artistic, "human" element - maybe you hear what I don't. It's just that most gamers like me only need something that's "good enough". The masses don't understand and don't care about high art in their shooty games.
On all that I agree. I just think this isn't a good example of that, not as strong as the visual arts. Voice acting is a more advanced form of screwing widgets together that factory robots can do. Yeah you still have people managing the factory, and people filling in the gaps, so I certainly don't ascribe to the socialists' panic that AI will steal everyone's jobs. You'll still have some people in the industry doing things only humans can do.