'We're canaries in the coal mine': Voice actor Jennifer Hale on AI in gaming

Renowned voice actor Jennifer Hale, who held the Guinness World Record for being the most prolific female voice actor of all for 11 years, has said when it comes to the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the entertainment industry, "we are simply the canaries in the coal mine".

Hale played a crucial role for actors during the SAG-AFTRA (Screen Actors Guild - American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) video games strike where actors took action until better protections against the use of AI and terms for being more fairly compensated for their work were agreed.

That agreement was reached in July, almost a year after the strike first started, with voting members satisfied with the changes that were introduced.

Ahead of her appearance at MCM Comic Con London which runs October 24-26, Hale spoke to indy100 about how AI has developed in gaming and voice acting, saying the sheer amount of change "is always unsettling" but that she does have "hope" for how it will be used going forward.

"There's an enormous amount of change out there right now and change is always unsettling, right?" she said. "It's changed for all of us and I think we in the entertainment industry are simply the canaries in the coal mine.

"In gaming, there's been a lot that's become unsettled in the face of AI and I think the fundamental question is, can you replace humans with machines and the deeper, to me more important question, is what's the cost of that?

"I actually have a lot of hope, I still believe there is something incredibly unique and beautiful about the human spark, I think there's something really divine about that.

"I think we're going to get some wildly realistic renditions of humans. I don't know how those are going to evolve, I think they're going to evolve in their own special and unique way.

"But I don't think you can replace humans. And writers make the world go round in the performance world too.

"I remember the 80s, I remember when that switch flipped before the definition of a CEO's success was about how they treated their employees, not just the bottom line where shareholder supremacy takes place.

"We suddenly started devaluing humans."

Jennifer Hale played a key role in the SAG-AFTRA video games strike / Getty Images for ReedPop

Hale played a key role as a voice in the SAG-AFTRA video games strike. She was invited into the process at quite an early stage and revealed what discussions took place and how they evolved.

"With the strike, I became part of a bridge between the two sides to facilitate understanding and communication," she said.

"Through that process, I was supremely impressed with how much the people on the other side of the table really valued the actors' contributions.

"To be perfectly clear, some of them had bosses a couple of layers up above them in the chain who are disconnected from the process and may simply see the actors' contributions as numbers on a spreadsheet but the people we were talking to directly were not those people.

"They were wonderful, they really valued us and I really deeply appreciate the opportunity that I had in that process. The key is control, consent, compensation and transparency.

"To be perfectly clear, I'm not at all anti-technology. I am learning and I think it's my responsibility to learn about AI because there are projects that will need it.

"I am 100 per cent for it - PROVIDED that all actors have control over where their voice is used, they give their consent and they are compensated fairly.

"I would not go to my plumber, hit them with the magic AI wand, steal their skills and then take away their job. That's unconscionable.

"AI is not a thing outside of us, it's a tool right now but it will continually evolve and many of us in the voice acting community believed earlier in the year it was the job of the union to get us something that was workable and fair.

Jennifer Hale is teaching for the first time at MCM Comic Con London / Getty Images for ReedPop

Hale founded SkillsHub, a platform where budding voice actors can gain coaching from professionals, writers and directors, when the Covid pandemic hit.

It was for herself at first to be able to build a space with people she could trust and have "10 minutes with" - and it has since evolved to help people around the world.

She is bringing a taste of it to MCM Comic Con where she will be teaching for the very first time in her career.

Hale said: "I am so excited to come to London, I'm so excited to see everybody.

"I'm teaching an acting workshop for people who just want to figure out if it's something they want to do or for people who've started and kind of stalled out. It's a 90-minute workshop. I'm doing one on the Friday and one on the Saturday."

Hale will be at MCM Comic Con at the ExCel London that runs October 24-26. She's also working on a couple of unannounced projects with more to be revealed in the future...

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• The Outer Worlds 2 review: Not quite out of this world

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