How Morpheme.ai is Making AI Voice Technology Ethical and Fair for Voice Actors

 

Voice acting is a creative and rewarding profession, but it also comes with some challenges and risks. One of them is the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) that can replicate and use actors’ voices without their consent or compensation. This can pose a threat to their livelihood, reputation, and identity.

However, not all AI is bad for voice actors. In fact, some companies are trying to make AI ethical and beneficial for them. One of them is Morpheme.ai, a start-up co-founded by voice actor Cissy Jones, who has lent her voice to games like Life Is Strange, Starfield, and Baldur’s Gate 3.

Morpheme’s goal is to create a “digital double” of an actor with their consent, and give them control over how their voice is used with AI technology. The process involves recording new data from the actor, which ensures the data won’t come into legal disputes later. Then, the actor is informed of any project that wants to use their digital double, and they can choose whether or not to be part of it. If they agree, they also receive a generation fee for every use of their voice.

Morpheme’s adviser Scott Mortman calls this the three Cs: “compensation, consent – which includes control – and then clarity or transparency.” He says that this is a paradigm shift from the previous AI companies that were using voice actors’ voices without their permission or payment, and creating synthetic voices that couldn’t be authenticated.

Morpheme is not the only company that is trying to make AI ethical for voice actors. Another one is Replica Studios, which offers realistic text-to-speech AI voices for storytellers. Replica also requires consent and compensation from the voice actors, and allows them to audition and direct the performance of their AI voices.

Both Morpheme and Replica are examples of how AI can be used in a way that respects and supports voice actors, rather than exploiting and replacing them. They are also examples of how voice actors can embrace and adapt to the evolving technology, rather than avoiding or fearing it.

As Jones says, "The genie is out of the bottle. You can’t stuff it back in. How do we make sure that we are part of the conversation so that we don’t get completely shut out?"¹

¹: This article is based on the information from the following sources: Meet the Company Fighting to Make AI Ethical for Voice Actors, New ElevenLabs Speech to Speech AI voice technology, Uproar over suspected AI use in new Naruto game, Replica Studios - Synthesize Voice AI and Natural Sounding Text-to-Speech, and Are AI Voice Actors Ethical? | Typecast.