13214: Felt Any AI Guilt Yet?
Hey there, hero!
AI in general, and synthetic voice and image generators in particular have led to a lot of FUD in our industry.
FUD? It’s an acronym that means Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt.
We fear being replaced by AI-generated models that would lead not just to the loss of jobs, but the possible deletion of the human contribution to creative work.
And yes, that’s a possibility.
So when you grabbed ChatGPT and had it re-write your bio for you, or you had Perplexity answer a question you had, or you had Bard come up with some HTML to help you get something handled on your website…how did that make you feel?
(That last one happened to me, and it was a bit unsettling…just how well it worked.)
Can technology be used for both good and evil in your book? What do you make of the basement and the balcony (watch or listen to this episode to find out what the heck I’m talking about)? Let me know in the comments below.
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Raw transcript:
Raw transcript:
I’d like to say the quiet part out loud
I’m wondering if you have ever felt
something that I’m calling AI
guilt what are you talking about David
well I I’ll share the details and ask
the questions in this episode of the vo
Heroes
podcast so we can’t come up with a more
controversial uh conversation
stopping death defying phrase or or a
couple of letters said in succession in
the world of performance other than ai
ai is uh a threat AI is also a
tool and there are those who have
decided that anything having to do with
AI is completely out of the question
staying as far away from it as possible
I get that because it’s threatening our
job
security at the same time I’m wondering
if some people have
used uh those people who feel that way
have used chat GPT to say help write
their new bio or to compose a heartfelt
response when you have no idea what to
say on somebody’s 55th birthday who
knows but you realize you’re using AI in
those moments as well that same
AI that threatens our job security and
are you feeling guilty about that well
you don’t need to I get that you are if
you are you don’t need to it goes back
to what uh I’ve said many times about
technology being neutral and Technology
having good uses and not so good uses
cuz constructive uses destructive uses
balconies and
basements of usage uh just like email
you know email helps you book a gig but
email can also uh be used by somebody to
try and steal your identity so
everything has pluses and minuses uses
but AI seems to have a tinge to it it’s
just saying the the phrase AI out loud
or synthetic voices out loud
uh seems to give people uh Aida you know
it makes them upset and I get that but
I’m just wondering if you have like on
the sly been using AI for other things
and if so if that doesn’t give
you a bit of Grace in terms of how you
consider AI I just wonder how do you
feel when you use chat GPT are you like
looking around and making sure that
nobody is seeing you do it uh uh tell me
what your thoughts are now we’re about 2
three years in on you know the AI boom
and it there’s no sign of it abating
although there have been articles that
have come out over the past few months
saying is the AI uh you know bubble over
who knows um but I’m wondering just how
you’re feeling about AI these days let
me know in the comments below and you
can if you want to scream about how AI
is stealing all our jobs but I’d rather
it be a bit of a deeper conversation
about has
your feelings thoughts approach to AI
changed when you realize there are
useful things you can do that aren’t
threats existential threats to our jobs
to our future to our uh our pursuit of
uh the Arts the pursuit of performance
uh voiceover acting on camera on stage
writing
Etc so let me know in the comments below
um I’d love to find out what your
thoughts are on
this uh I know that I’ve gotten over it
um I use it whenever I feel like it’s a
useful tool and I also scream about the
fact that you know producers are going
to start to use it more often and that
may cost me a job or two so anyway let
me know also hit the like button if you
like what you’re hearing in these
episodes you can subscribe to the
channel you can click the notification
Bell and be notified when new episodes
come out you can also share this with
other actors who might might have a
thought or two about AI I’m David H
Lawrence 17th I thank you so much for
watching and for listening and I will
see you in the next episode of the vo
Heroes podcast
(from YouTube)
When Avatar 1 in 3D came out, many thought that that was the end of 2D movies and that 3D was here to stay. Technology opens a new door, but most of the time it doesn’t close another. I know that AI will replace some human work, but I also believe that the human touch is irreplaceable. Let’s focus on what humans are good at and what AI most likely never will be able to achieve. In those segments, we can thrive. And if AI can help us in this human endeavor, would it be wrong to use it?
I use it as part of my toolbox, it helps me with creativity. I also choose to own it as opposed to hiding it.
I asked Chat GPT to rephrase this in a lighthearted manner-
Chat GPT example – I keep it in my creativity toolkit—it’s a handy little helper! Plus, I’d rather embrace it than tuck it away.
When you hear certain voices, you really connect with them: James Earl Jones, Sam Elliot, to name just a couple. We have a relationship with some of these. I have never heard anybody laud Siri’s intonation or mention how Alexa really got an emotional response with it’s vocals. Some business will be lost, some wont…welcome to the new competitor.
Useful and appreciated: Googling a question and getting what is often a comprehensive and correct answer right at the top of the page. I do try to click on an article for corroboration and so they don’t lose all the traffic to their site. Often ChatGPT will have lifted the complete relevant sentence from the article. Which seems plagiarism-adjacent.
Un-useful and unappreciated: those horrible, awful sounding AI voices narrating long biographical YouTube videos, probably also written by AI. I close them immediately, hoping that people won’t become accustomed to that level of performance, making it more acceptable to their ears and helping take jobs away from voice actors.
Which brings me to the mezzanine – partly useful yet annoying. I was struggling to write a new bio, and my brother asked AI to do it. It was both okay and truly awful. Like one of those biographical videos. It screamed inauthenticity. But useful in that it made me say, “Well I can certainly do better than that.” Which I did.
Best: finishing an email sentence for me in a business email in just the right way and better than I would have said it.
Thanks for making me think about all this in a fresh way!
Useful and appreciated: Googling a question and getting what is often a comprehensive and correct answer right at the top of the page. I do try to click on an article for corroboration and so they don’t lose all the traffic to their site. Often ChatGPT will have lifted the complete relevant sentence from the article. Which seems plagiarism-adjacent.
Un-useful and unappreciated: those awful and awful-sounding AI voices narrating long biographical YouTube videos, probably also written by AI. I close them immediately and hope that people won’t become accustomed to that level of performance making it acceptable and helping to take jobs away from voice actors.
Which brings me to the mezzanine – partly useful yet annoying. I was struggling to write a new bio, and my brother asked AI to do it. It was both okay and truly repellent. Like one of those biographical videos. It screamed inauthenticity. But useful, in that it made me say, “Well I can certainly do better than that.” Which I did. Thanks, AI… I guess.
Best: predictive text finishing a sentence for me in a business email in just the right way and better than I would have said it.
Thanks for making me think about all this in a fresh way.
I did an AI project last year, and was very embarassed that I did it, but I needed the money. It was the job from hell. So I don’t tell too many VO people about it.