Paris – French gamer Romain Bos, a lifelong fan of “Tomb Raider,” was Tenterhook when the popular video game update came online in August.
However, his excitement quickly turned to anger.
Gamer ears and other “grave invasion” fans have picked up something odd in the French voice of Lara Croft, the main character of the game.
It sounded robotic, unvibrant – the shattering of the warmth, bounty and credibility that French voice actor Françoise Cudre has given Croft since he began playing the character in 1996.
Gamer and Cudol themselves have come to the same conclusion. The machine cloned her voice and replaced her.
“That's pathetic,” says Cudol. “My voice is mine. You have no right to do it.”
“It was absolutely scandalous,” says Boss. “It was artificial intelligence.”
Aspyr, a game developer based in Austin, Texas, did not respond to email questions from the Associated Press. However, last week's post confirmed that what was described as “illegal AI-generated content” was incorporated into the August 14th update of “Tomb Raider IV – Vi Remastered,” which angered fans.
“We addressed this issue by removing all AI narration content,” the Aspyr post said. “We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.”
Still, the event has sparked alarms in the narration community, with campaigners saying it is a calm example of the dangers AI poses to human workers and their jobs.
“If we can replace actors, we can replace the entire range of accountants and other professions that can be automated,” says Patrick Kuban, a French voice actor who is also co-president of United Voice Artists, the International League of Narrators.
“So we need to ask ourselves the right questions: how far should we go and how do we regulate these machines?”
Hollywood has found similar concerns, with video game performers on strike for 11 months this year on a new contract that includes AI Guardrails.
“This happens almost everywhere. We get alerts from all over the world, from Brazil to Taiwan,” Kuban said in an interview with The Associated Press.
“The actor's voices are captured to create audio clones — not perfect, because there are now so many apps for making audio deepfakes for individuals to use illegally on social media,” Kuban said.
“These voices are also used by content producers who aren't necessarily in the same country,” he said. “So it's very difficult for actors to regain control over their voices in order to block these uses.”
Cadol says within minutes of the release of the “Tomb Raider” update, her phone began erupting with messages, emails and social media notifications from upset fans.
“I looked, I saw all of these emotions – anger, sadness, confusion. And that made me realize my voice was cloned,” she said in an interview with The Associated Press.
Cadol says that she recorded 12 years of Lara Croft's French Nancosie from 1996 to 2008, creating an intimate bond with her fans. She calls them “protectives” of her work.
Once the initial shock subsides, she decides to fight back. Her Parisian lawyer, Jonathan Elkaim, is seeking an apology from Aspill and financial relief.
The update appears to have added new chunks to the real recordings that Kadru says he made years ago.
Most notably, fans featured in one of the particularly troublesome segments. In it, Voice tells the player how to use the game controller to climb Lara Croft onto an obstacle and intonang in French.
Not only does it sound clunky, it also sounds grammatically wrong to French speakers – mixing together the polite, polite form of language they use, depending on who they are dealing with.
The gamer was crossed his arms. The boss posted a video on his YouTube channel that night, saying, “Half Françoise Cador, half AI. It's scary! Why did they do that?”
“I was really tired of it,” the 34-year-old said in an interview with The Associated Press. “I grew up with the voice of Françoise Cudre. I was a fan of “Grave Raider” from a young age. ”
“Lara Croft is a bit – what to do – it's a bit ironic at times on some of her lines, and I think Françoise played it very well,” he said.
“That's precisely because now is the time to set boundaries,” he added. “A future generations also have the opportunity to experience talented actors.”
