Late last week, Fortnite got a Darth Vader chatbot you can squad up with and have stilted AI-powered conversations that use James Earl Jones’ actual voice. It’s not just said a bunch of stuff it wasn’t supposed to – it’s now led the SAG-AFTRA union to file unfair labour practice charge.
If you weren’t around last week, Epic quickly had to issue a patch to the bot – which has been made with the approval of deceased Vader VA Jones’ family – not long after it was released into the wild, because players had managed to get it to say stuff it shouldn’t. You know, swears, slurs, and chatter about breasts.
Fast forward to last night, when voice acting union SAG-AFTRA issued a statement on the AI Vader bot, challenging Epic on it being a thing and revealing that it’s filed an unfair labour practice charge with the US National Labour Relations Board.
“We celebrate the right of our members and their estates to control the use of their digital replicas and welcome the use of new technologies to allow new generations to share in the enjoyment of those legacies and renowned roles,” the union wrote, acknowledging Jones’ estate having approved the bot, “However, we must protect our right to bargain terms and conditions around uses of voice that replace the work of our members, including those who previously did the work of matching Darth Vader’s iconic rhythm and tone in video games.
“Fortnite’s signatory company, Llama Productions, chose to replace the work of human performers with A.I. technology. Unfortunately, they did so without providing any notice of their intent to do this and without bargaining with us over appropriate terms. As such, we have filed an unfair labor practice charge with the NLRB against Llama Productions.”
VG247 has reached out to Epic for comment.
So, we’ll have to see what, if anything comes of the union challenging Llama Productions over allegedly not providing it notice of its plans to use AI to create AI Vader. It’s yet another chapter in the union and many voice actors’ efforts to secure protections against the use of AI to mimic voices, which it’s been argued presents an existential threat to their profession.
After all, as the union argues here, getting another actor to deliver voice lines for Fortnite Vader that sound like Jones would have been an alternative option to using AI her. Though as I’ve said, Epic and Llama did secure the right permission from those representing the AI-emulated actor’s interests.
How do you feel about AI Vader? Let us know below.