Ashly Burch, the performance actress for Horizon Forbidden West protagonist Aloy, has some things to say about a recent AI-powered character model demonstration from PlayStation.
The video, first reported by The Verge, was created by Sharwin Raghoebardajal, director of software engineering at PlayStation’s Advanced Technology Group. The video showed off the model for Aloy utilizing different Sony technologies as well as GPT-4 and Llama 3 in order to let Aloy respond to player questions.
In a post on Instagram, Burch says that Horizon developer Guerrilla Games reached out to her, explaining that this demonstration “didn’t reflect” anything currently in development, and that nothing from her performance was used in the training data for the model. Burch went on to explain that even with that in mind, she has concerns.
“All that said, I feel worried, and not worried about Guerrilla specifically or Horizon or my performance or my career specifically even, I feel worried about this art form,” reminding people that SAG-AFTRA is still on strike, primarily because of AI.
Burch notes that the union is asking companies for guaranteed consent and compensation when making AI duplicates of actors, and that companies have to explain how it’ll be used.
“I feel worried not because the technology exists. Not even because game companies want to use it, because of course they do, they always want to use technological advancements,” Burch says, adding “I just imagine a video like this coming out that does have someone’s performance attached to it, that does have someone’s voice or face or movement. And the possibility that if we lose this fight, that person would have no recourse. They wouldn’t have any protections, any way to fight back.”
“That possibility, it makes me so sad, it hurts my heart, it scares me. I love this industry and this art form so much, and I want there to be a new generation of actors, I want there to be so many more incredible game performances. I want to be able to continue to do this job. If we don’t win, then that future is really compromised.”
Burch is an accomplished actress, and outside of Aloy and Horizon, she’s also known for voicing Tiny Tina in the Borderlands series, as well as Chloe Price in Life is Strange. She’s also a part of the ongoing tabletop series Critical Role, as well as the Apple TV show Mythic Quest.
Generative AI continues to be a point of concern
Big companies haven’t shown any signs of slowing down research into using AI in games, and indeed, the term “AI” is proving annoyingly broad even when referring to generative models.
Microsoft recently announced Copilot for Gaming, an Xbox chatbot that’s meant to help players install games, find tips, and explain what they last did in a game.
Before that, the company also demonstrated Muse, an AI model that could generate low-resolution snippets of gameplay that are playable and react to real-time changes. Muse is primarily meant for rapid content ideation and testing, according to Microsoft.
Activision was also recently forced to disclose the use of generative AI by Steam, coming weeks after players already strongly suspected the technology was being used for some in-game assets.
For me, as someone that truly loves storytelling in games and the incredible performances that can be part of those narratives, the concerns that Burch raises are constantly echoing.
I continue to hope that actors will be able to get a deal that ensures if this technology is used with their performances, that it will be used ethically and with fair compensation.
Given what I’ve seen so far, that continues to seem like an uphill struggle, but a worthy one all the same.
Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered and Horizon Forbidden West are both currently available on Windows PC and PlayStation 5.
