A lifelong fan of Tomb Raider, French gamer Romain Bos was on tenterhooks when an update of the popular video game went online in August. But his excitement quickly turned to anger. The gamer's ears—and those of other Tomb Raider fans—picked up something amiss with the French-language voice of Lara Croft, the game's protagonist. It sounded robotic, lifeless even—shorn of the warmth, grace, and believability that French voice actor Françoise Cadol has given to Croft since she started playing the character in 1996. As the AP reports, gamers and Cadol herself came to the same conclusion: A machine had cloned her voice and replaced her.
"It's pathetic," says Cadol, who straight away called her lawyer. "My voice belongs to me." "It was absolutely scandalous," says Bos. Aspyr, the game developer based in Austin, Texas, acknowledged in a post last week that what it described as "unauthorized AI generated content" had been incorporated into its Aug. 14 update of Tomb Raider IV–VI Remastered that angered fans. "We've addressed this issue by removing all AI voiceover content," Aspyr's post said. "We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused."
Still, the affair has triggered alarms in the voiceover community, with campaigners saying it's a sobering example of dangers that AI poses to humans and their jobs. "If we can replace actors, we'll be able to replace accountants, and a whole range of other professions that could also be automated," says Patrick Kuban, a French-language voice actor. Hollywood has seen similar concerns, with video game performers striking for 11 months for a new contract this year that included AI guardrails. "This is happening pretty much everywhere. We're getting alerts from all over the world," Kuban says.
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"These voices are also being used by content producers who aren't necessarily in the same country," he says. "So it's very difficult for actors to reclaim control over their voices, to block these uses." Cadol says 12 years of recording French-language voiceovers for Lara Croft built an intimate bond with her fans. She calls them the guardians of her work. "Lara Croft is a bit ... sarcastic at times in some of her lines. And I think Françoise played that very, very well," says Bos. "That's exactly why now is the time to set boundaries," he added. "It's so that future generations also have the chance to experience talented actors."
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