Opinion | A.I. Is Coming for Hank Azaria’s ‘Simpsons’ Voices
Soon enough, artificial intelligence may be able to recreate the sounds — but there will be something missing.
Fascinating piece with the videos illustrating
So, if I’m being honest, I am a little worried. This is my job. This is what I love to do, and I don’t want to have to stop doing it. The conventional wisdom in Hollywood is that the technology for making faces seem fully human is five years away. I fear that the voice equivalent is also coming.
If A.I. takes over, maybe there could be some upside. I miss dearly Mel Blanc’s old Bugs Bunny performances. We’ll never get them again. But maybe with A.I., we can have more of them. Maybe it would work especially well if someone like me, who is intimately familiar with the subtleties of the character, could help recreate what Bugs Bunny was doing by essentially directing A.I.
We’ve already been recycling so much, AI is just the ultimate border to create anything new. Don’t try to adjust to it. We can watch the old stuff and create new things, we don’t have to recreate the past in the present. Don’t give in!
Sure more Mel Blanc episodes would be great...but I think you have to realize a couple of things...
1, part of what made Looney Toons great in his era was the writing and animation style. The animation style can come back, sure...but the writing is (probably) long gone.
The casual racism and stereotyping might be "acceptable" soon, but the level of cartoon violence has little room in modern family screen time.
2, part of what makes the greats "great" is the finite amount of work they've contributed to. This is as true for voice actors as it is for any other art.
Let's look at a modern example...Jim Cummings is probably the biggest and most well known voice actor today. He's had tons of memorable roles over the years and many of his characters are uniquely his, such as Monterey Jack and Pete (Goofy's villain)...to the point that my kids are giving eye rolls when I say "Is that Jim Cummings", look it up, and of course, it is.
Jim is in his 70s now and likely doesn't have many professional years left.
The idea of having an infinite amount of Jim Cummings voice work actually sounds tedious. I love the guy and all his work, but if they use his likeness in AI for anything, I'd hope it be to gracefully retire his recurring characters...not immortalize him with infinite new content. That's the type of sendoff a legend like him deserves. Not for his kin to hear him do things he never did.
I would also be sad if AI voices became common in cartoons because it doesn't give us a chance to hear new interesting voices from creative people. We would just get resurrected old voice actors.
Mel is dead! All you get is wank that is pretending to be Mel.
Appreciate and cherish the performances he gave while alive, instead of dressing up a dumb bot in Mel’s skin.
It’s not human and it’s not a Mel Blanc performance!
If people can't yeah the difference, it doesn't matter.
That's also why AI is so fucking scary
I thought the tech for imitating voices was already essentially available. There are cases of fraud that have been based on this.
Hate to say it, but AI-driven voice impersonation is not coming - it's already here. It's not perfect, but it's pretty damn impressive, and is at a useable state already.
no it looks like shit
