13159: Part 2 – NAVA’s Carin Gilfry On AI And Synthetic Voices

Raw transcript:

in another episode of the vo Heroes
podcast we talked with Karen gilfrey who
is one of the co-founders VP of Nava the
National Association of voice actors
about where she sees the whole notion of
the threat of artificial intelligence
the threat of synthetic voices the
threat against human artists when it
comes to voice over from the robots well
there’s more to the story because she
has her own little journey with
artificial intelligence and synthetic
voices and we’re going to continue our
conversation with Karen gilfrey in this
episode of the vo Heroes
podcast so we’re talking with Karen
gilfrey and she’s kind of given us the
411 on what Nava voices. org which is
Nava the National Association of uh
voice actors Karen is one of the
co-founders along with Tim friedlander
and is currently the VP uh I like to
refer to her as the benevolent dictator
of of Nava um but if you check out the
last episode we did she kind of talked
about where Nava is on and where she is
on the notion of synthetic voices uh we
we talk about AI all the time artificial
intelligence as though all it does is do
deep fakes and we know that’s not the
case
uh certainly technology can be used for
very very awful things very detrimental
things negative things and it’s thought
of in that way by a lot of talent who
see this notion of artificial
intelligence is coming for my job I’m
never going to work again as a performer
once they get this stuff perfected and
they’re freaking out and I think that it
would be great if you talked a little
bit about how you have kind of Taken the
power of that taken your uh like not
likeness but but voice and have decided
you’re not going to let AI push you
around you’re going to uh you’re going
to do something proactive with it and I
think people don’t realize that there
are these
positive uh positive things that can be
done with artificial intelligence that
couldn’t be done before if we couldn’t
train an llm on our voice a large
language model on our voice voice can
you talk a little bit about uh uh
licensing your voice and what you’ve
done in that area sure so first of all I
I should say that it has always been the
position of Nava that we are not anti-
technology we are just PRO voice actor
we are pro actor we are procreative
person um Pro pro-human but not anti-
technology um before we even formed
Nava uh I have I had been really
interested in Ai and synthetic voice
production um in 2019 we had Rupal Patel
who is the CEO of vocal ID um speak at
the vocation conference in New York City
which is a conference that I run about
the business of VoiceOver and the things
that she had to say about what they were
doing with their company intrigued me so
much that I really wanted to investigate
further and I came to that conclusion in
the in 2019 that there are certain jobs
that humans cannot do for example if the
New York Times wanted a voice to read
the entire newspaper at the moment of
publication without any
mistakes they could not hire a human to
do that job fast enough the paper would
come out at midnight eastern time and
then someone would spend hours and hours
and hours and hours recording it and by
the time they were finished there would
be lots of mistakes and they would send
them the files and so that is not
something that can be done by a human it
would no longer be newsworthy either it
would no longer be newsworthy exactly
yeah but it can be done by a robot so if
you say you know to Alexa Alexa read me
the the front page of the New York Times
don’t don’t do that Alex
don’t don’t I don’t know if it’s I don’t
know if it’s actually if they actually
have that now but just as a hypothetical
example you know that would be possible
um so I created a synthetic voice with
vocal ID in
2021 um I I paid nothing up upfront they
didn’t pay me but as part of the
contract I have control over what my
voice does so every company that comes
to vocal ID and says we would like to
use K’s voice for this project I look at
the project I look at the scope I look
at the fee I look at everything involved
with that project and I am the one who
decides yes or no we can negotiate back
and forth we can decide on you know
whatever that fee happens to be we can
make it go up or down or whatever um and
then I have a a a split the fee is split
between me and vocal ID because it
actually costs a lot to make a voice
clone um I think at the time in 201 21
it was something like between 30 and
$60,000 to create a clone voice now it’s
much much less yeah but um you know they
put that they put that effort and time
into the creation of the voice so the
the fee split and they host it on their
site too it’s not something that just
exists out in the world it only exists
through the uh program that voal ID has
so um that’s why the fee split my voice
has been hired for one job so far in a
couple of years and that is to read the
weather in every place that has weather
all over the world um you can ask at
this uh one Weather Service to read you
the weather and it will tell you you
know in real time what the weather is
what the forecast is etc etc and that is
also a job that a human cannot
do um I’m also uh part of a uh a very
big phone
system it has taken two years to record
this phone system and uh every single
prompt right now is a live recording of
me uh I recorded every single one in my
studio and sent them every single one
and so far they have not created a
synthetic version of my voice but that
is not off the table I am certainly open
to that because it would allow them to
be able to use my voice in ways like
saying every single person’s first name
correctly if they want and I Karen would
not have to record all of that um so
there are applications for it as as
someone who once recorded a 16,000
prompt city name base for America
Online you kind of don’t want to do that
I mean it was it was very remunerative
you know I’ve told the story a few times
about this um but you can see how you
know do you want to be 24 hours on a
veil for things
when you could just have a model of your
voice especially for an ivr system where
the quality is not meant to be or
expected to be like pristine audio file
quality like we have in some other
categories of Voice work and could you
do it in a way that brings you income
this was not possible
before you know uh voice modeling
language uh the the increase in qual
quality in the learning of those
languages the additional input to those
language models um when you look at a a
product we we’ve demonstrated it here um
you know a a product like um descript
and their
overdub uh uh tool where if you want to
make a little tiny change and it occurs
at numerous places throughout what you
do you could very easily do a high qu
quity change on that just by changing
the text script and then having it go in
and use the model that it has of your
voice when when actors kind of throw
everything out the window when voice
actors say I’m not even going to
consider artificial intelligence it’s
the devil’s work it is the the demise of
my business I don’t even want to talk
about
it would you have anything to say to
them about maybe like you know maybe you
don’t want to like make that decision so
quickly because you never know what
tools might be available to you I think
and we said this in the previous episode
too education is key you will feel so
much more confident making decisions
about this when when you are very well
educated about what this technology is
doing now and what it may do in the
future and you know some people it might
not be for them and they will say please
do not like I never want to be involved
in AI or synthetic voice production for
the rest of my life
and that is absolutely fine what we at
Nava are hoping for is that that will be
your choice if you want that you will be
able to say I opt out of everything I
will never have my voice cloned and
that’s that’s my choice but at the same
time we also want people to be able to
make an informed choice about saying I
really do want this I want that passive
income I would love for my voice to be
on a phone system that everyone listens
to and that’s really cool and it’s great
if they create a synthetic version of it
but if you do that we want you to have
control we want you to give consent and
we want you to get compensation and
credit is important too yeah however I
will say that sometimes maybe you don’t
want to get credit for things I don’t I
I could go there with certain categories
of work but do we need to I mean I think
we all know what we’re talking about I
am so excited about this I hope you will
allow me to share this with my students
absolutely because this is uh you know
teaching not just how to get into
voiceover but how to get into voiceover
knowing that artificial intelligence is
a brand
new something to consider both when
you’re getting into it and now that
you’re in it or you’re trying to raise
your level raise the bar um I think it’s
really important to understand both
sides of this and Karen I can’t tell you
how proud I am of you and Tim and the
rest of the team and the members of Nava
and the dedication because a lot of
these organizations like show up and
then they’re gone and this feels Hefty
this feels like it’s got grit and
resilience and knowledge behind it you
know I think if you could get Tim to
slow down in terms of how fast he
speaks just saying we’ll work on it
we’ll work on it but legal copy you know
look at the Brain Trust that you’ve got
there if you haven’t joined Nava yet I
urge you to do so uh navavoor it’s
really inexpensive there’s a whole thing
that Nava’s doing with insurance that we
haven’t talked about um but I’ve talked
about on the podcast before so you
you’ve gotten all kinds of exposure on
that um I really appreciate it and I’m
hoping that you would give us one final
bit of advice on what some someone who
is thinking about getting into voiceover
but kind of making the decision not to
because they think what artificial
intelligence why would I put all that
work into becoming a voice Talent if
they’re just going to if the robots are
just going to come and sit in front of
the
microphone you never know what the
future will hold we could wake up
tomorrow and there could be a brand new
technological platform that is voice
only that they need voice actors for and
it’s on Mars and they and we don’t know
and it’s a whole new market or whatever
but we you don’t know what the future
holds if this is something that you are
passionate passionate about and this is
something that you really want to do and
this is your dream and your goal jump in
give it your all do as much as you can
to make your dream a reality and pay
attention to all of this stuff but don’t
let it deter you from the thing that you
really really want to do it is very
possible to make a living as a voice
actor and or or to even just do
voiceover as a very very fulfilling
hobby if that’s something that you want
to do um all things are possible and
don’t let the future scare you too much
that’s awesome that’s just awesome and
go to navavoor
join uh take advantage of all the
training that they have take advantage
if you’re interested in the insurance
options that they have take advantage of
their uh partic ipation in the human
Artistry program in Fair voices uh in
their own internal uh Outreach to the
community to the production Community to
the Artistry Community uh Karen gilfrey
uh vice president co-founder of Nava the
National Association of voice actors I
so appreciate you being with us
especially just after putting your kids
to bed that’s very kind of you well I’m
glad they’re asleep because otherwise I
would not have been able to join you and
thank you so much for having me yeah
yeah uh so if you have questions about
this just put them in the comments below
uh we’ll answer them um we’ll we’ll uh
take a look at what you have and and
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so please feel free to to do that I’m
David H Lawrence the 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

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