In 2023, Screen Actors Guild – The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) closed Hollywood for four months, seeking protection from artificial intelligence (AI), among other things, many in India wondered why nothing happened there. One concern with the movement was that studios would use AI to replicate artist portraits in exploitative ways. The strike ended with a three-year agreement guaranteeing fair pay, including provisions requiring performers to approve the way they use their voices.
Nothing has happened in India since then. However, the entertainment industry, where AI is being felt violently effective, has small niche sections such as the dubbing and narration sectors. The gig is already beginning to disappear. In terms of the nature of work, these are strange times in the Indian industry. If you're a dubbing artist, you may see that your voice is being used in a film you've never worked on.
Why the voice sector? Perhaps because some of the advances in AI, such as text-to-speech models and speech cloning, have come to focused aspects such as copyright, compensation, and consent in the informal industry of around 20,000 freelancers. The Association of Speech Artists in India (AVA) is now more active than ever, publishing cycles for artists and organising for artists to spread awareness about how to survive and demand fair wages in an environment of uncertainty.
AI has yet to evolve much to completely replace traditional dubbing. What it can do is a more obvious narration with no drama and nuance. It is fully functional for infomercials, corporate audiovisual, user manuals, and even television promotions. The business subsector has been hit hard as many dubbed artists Moonlight supplements their income in these regions. Speech from the text reduced costs (for the client), but eliminated voice artists entirely.
“If the voice actors had previously done 15-20 projects a month, they're now 6-7,” says Amarinder Singh Sodhi, AVA's general secretary.The Avengers are assembled) and blade (Deadpool & Wolverine). “And he or she is probably over 40 or 50,” he adds. “It's not easy to change your profession overnight at that age.”
In 2023, when the SAG-AFTRA strike occurred, actor Joseph Gordon Levitt wrote a passionate and Clarion call for demanding fair wages in au pairs from the “high-tech Giants, Entertainment Giants, and all other profit-hungry giants.” “What is behind the curtains of AI? The cost of human labor involved in creating training data,” he writes. “A “generic AI” can't generate anything without first being trained with a large amount of data and then recombining it. Who generates that training data? ”
Sodi and his colleagues are fighting the same fight. Before they join the project, they want to know what they are obsessed with, so they are not exploited. High-tech companies are usually based in the US – often approaching voice artists and lending voices in vague terms without specifying how, where, or in what form their voices will be used. The lack of laws regarding AI use means that voice artists, especially new and less experienced voice artists, remain vulnerable to such offers. Therefore, the AVA took it on for education. “If you're going forward with it, you need to understand that your voice is your intellectual property, and that can be misused. And the use of voice may be at some point in risk for your future prospects as a voice artist,” says Sodhi.
“We previously went to the studio where we were handed a specific script, recorded it without asking questions and went home. But now the scenario has changed,” he adds. “Our basic rule is, before you go to the audition, before you ask questions, ask exactly what you're doing this audition, as the random script is going to be completely no from now on.”
Aditya Mathur, voice of Nickelodeon's channel, echoes Sodi. “I can speak in English and then I can capture and use the same thing in many languages that AI can do. So basically I'm supposed to be paid for multiple languages,” he says.
It's not just compensation — it's about consent too. “If someone sends me a clip of hate speech in my voice tomorrow, it's scary because I don't support it. And the voice is part of our personality. That's our identity.” Avatar: Water Roadespecially. “There are so many ethical and moral issues related to the same,” she adds.
The latest miracle in AI Voicing is cloning. This is a kind of speech equivalent to a deep visual fake. This allows users to apply the texture of one voice actor to the performance of another voice actor. This has enabled feats that were previously unthinkable. Your favorite Hindi-speaking Bollywood star can hear Telugu in his own voice (and not the dubbed artist) in a blur. This is clearly an improvement over traditional dubbing, and gives it credibility. But where does it leave the dubbed artist? They are still needed and produce a very important “performance” in which the star voice texture is applied.
Dubbed producer Rajashrie Sharma speculates that this could lead to less paying for clients. “If a dubbing artist charges £3 lakh or £4 (about $3,500-4,500) to infuse a theatrical film before, “We're not going to broadcast your voice. We're going to replicate it using performances,” she says.
How popular are tools that are likely to make audio cloning into movies and streaming series? It's already been seen in such a movie Kalki 2898 AD and Bettyre – Both South Indian films with Indian and Indian charm. And the founder of Mg Srinivas, Cannada filmmaker and audio clone studio Ai Samhitha, said “most of the big movies released in multiple languages are doing that now.”
Sriniva himself uses voice cloning in his last film, Ghostand I'm excited about the outlook for Indian films. He says that voice cloning does not mean an artist's underpayment. “It can anyone, the average voice artist can come and give a voice and clone it into the actor's voice,” he insists. “It doesn't work that way. The dubbing artist needs to be very skilled. He has to do the right modulation. He has to be technically strong.
Srinivas, a former radio DJ, says he knows the importance of voice. “Dubbling artists bring in original, authentic things. There is no technology to replace them at the moment, but who knows in five years?”
Then, the path to the future is adapting to the relentless march of technology for voice artists. But insiders say regulations need to be needed. Unlike the US, where clauses and contracts regarding the use of AI have been signed, India has not yet had binding industry agreements or interventions from the government. “Governments and countries will want to use AI. It's a technology that can increase productivity, but it can also stifle a lot of lives,” says Sodhi. His colleague Ankur Javeri – has been calling out all the ads for Virat Kohli until recently, and is Goku's Hindi voice Dragon Ball Z – Other unions from other post-production units must also be holding hands in order to make such an impact.
Javeri said:
