13158: Part 1 – NAVA’s Carin Gilfry On AI And Synthetic Voices

Raw transcript:

we have talked a lot over the last few
years about artificial intelligence and
synthetic
voices and there happens to be one woman
who is hip deep in all this and she is
someone worth listening to her name is
Karen gilfrey she’s one of the Mucky
mucks at Nava the National Association
of voice actors and we’re going to talk
to her about where things stand right
now from her perspective when it comes
to artificial intelligence and synthetic
voices on this episode of the vo Heroes
podcast Karen gilfrey co-founder VP of
Nava National Association of voice
actors did I get all that right you did
fantastic you did fantastic there may or
may not be an index card in front of me
with that on there but I you know I
can’t say for sure uh I actually knew
that by heart because I’m a proud member
of Nava and I am a huge admirer I’ve
been an admirer since the Opera in a
closet days on NPR if you haven’t done
that just Google Karen gilfrey Opera
closet and you’ll you’ll see the the
story but along with uh Tim friedlander
Nava is an organization an
alternative uh organization not the same
as uh being a part of a union but
certainly being part part of an
organization that has uh some of the
same goals and that is the respect and
the proper treatment of human actors and
what I wanted to talk to Karen about
today was something that was prompted by
a question that I got when I was
teaching a course at the union for the
for the uh the
foundation uh somebody said because I’d
mentioned you and somebody said well
didn’t Karen like license her
voice and I had not heard this story um
but before we get to
that I want to give you an opportunity
to sort of talk about the position and
platform of Nava when it comes to the
negative side of artificial intelligence
we’ve been talking a lot here about the
balcony and the basement of AI and the
dangers as well as some of the
advantages to using technology in
general and I just wanted to give you an
opportunity to talk about what Nava’s
been up to yeah absolutely um so Nava
the National Association of voice actors
is like you said it’s an association
it’s not a union but one thing that is
really great um about us is that we
represent just voice actors um our
association is just for voiceover uh in
SRA you know SRA is fantastic amazing
wonderful
but they
represent thousands and thousands
hundreds of thousands of actors who are
mostly on camera I’m not sure how many
actors in saaa are primarily just
voiceover um we have yeah but we have as
voice actors um in some ways slightly
different needs from on camera actors in
the same way that stunt performers have
slightly different needs from people who
don’t do stunts or dancers or singers
you know we are our own we are our own
little group of people and we needed
some kind of Association to be able to
talk about the things that matter to us
and kind of you know advocate for the
things that we want and to work
alongside zagra whenever possible to
educate people about all kinds of things
including joining the union converting
work um how to make a living in in ways
that align with you know the strike
right now
you know things like that so we’re very
um we’re very supportive of sagra and uh
yeah but specifically about
AI we have seen over the last couple of
years things happening uh in voiceover
first which will eventually go over into
on camera as well but voice is easier to
replicate and duplicate than a full
human being so we have seen people
having their voices used for the
creation of AI and the training of AI
without their active consent without
their uh without control over what that
voice is saying and without compensation
and even if there is compensation it’s
not proper compensation what it should
be and a lot of that has to do with
people not being educated about what
they are signing when they sign a
contract so it’s one of our goals our
number one goal is education um about
these issues we’ve had tons of classes
we’ve had open Town Halls we’ve had
forums we had a a legal Symposium with
lawyers who specialize in this kind of
stuff um education is a huge huge part
of uh fighting back against this stuff
because the more knowledge we have the
better armed we will be to go into a
session or go into a contract
negotiation or go into
something where AI may be
involved and then we know what what our
rights are and what we want and what
they might ask for and how to counter
that you know yep so um so that’s what
we’ve been doing the yeah go ahead you
talk about I I have since added a fourth
C to the three C’s uh when you talk
about uh control and consent and
compensation I’ve added credit because
there are times and some of the other
organizations like Fair voices and human
Artistry campaign and the union have
been talking about the notion of sort of
the hidden talent that never gets known
because their voice is modeled and
they’re used and other things what would
you say to a
fan who thinks what’s the big deal I’m
just using you know David’s Voice or
Karin’s voice they did this character
they should be happy that I’m I’m doing
fan fiction and fan animation and making
use of it and and why is this a big deal
what would you say to them it’s a really
tough thing because you know the
entertainment industry would not exist
without
fans um we love fans we love that people
are supporting projects that we do um
but at the same time the way that we all
earn our living the way that I learn
earn my living is by licensing my voice
and image and when that voice or image
is available to anyone without pay that
dilutes my ability to ask for a fee um
when you can make me say anything you
want and make me do anything you want
things that I would never do you know or
say you’re literally taking the words
out of my mouth you are taking my voice
um and you’re you’re robbing me of the
the right to speak for myself um and
that’s a that’s a that is a tricky thing
to balance um I would hope that at some
point we will have some kind of
legislation in place that says that
every individual person has the right to
their own likeness image voice that I
cannot go and take you know random
person on the street and harvest their
voice or their image or whatever their
their facial data or their fingerprint
or whatever and use that for my own
personal
benefit um or for commercial use you
know there should be a law in place that
that does not allow that I think a lot
of people would be surprised to know
that there aren’t you you they would
they would certainly think that
California New York where production
takes place but it turns out that the
number one state for that sort of thing
is Illinois so far that’s true that’s
true so we’re talking there are some
protections yeah there are some
Protections in in California New York
and Illinois but not as good as not as
gota fight as they should be yes yeah
yeah and and that’s that’s a you know
that’s kind of indicative of the
constant lag of legislation behind the
technology technology can change tonight
uh legislation will take a few decades
in some cases uh we’re talking with
Karen gilfrey she’s the co-founder
VP of Nava at
navavoor it’s the National Association
of voice actors um going to make this a
two-part uh interview so we’re going to
do another episode in just a moment so
if you want to hit the like button uh
maybe hit the Subscribe button uh maybe
want to hit the notification Bell if you
hit it really really hard you won’t
disfigure it I promise and you’ll know
when the next episode comes out I’m
David H Lawrence 17th and I thank you
for watching and for listening and I’ll
see you in the next episode with Karen
gilfrey of the vo Heroes
podcast

(from YouTube)