Persona Futaba VA Deactivates Twitter After Harassment Over AI Voice Usage

Voice actor Erica Lindbeck deleted her Twitter account after Twitter users harassed her for her opposition of an unauthorized AI usage of her voice.

A fan had uploaded a video, using an AI (artificial intelligence)-generated voice of Lindbeck as Persona 5‘s Futaba Sakura, to make it seem as though she was singing Bo Burnham’s song “Welcome to the Internet.” Lindbeck made a request on her Twitter account, asking for the video to be taken down as it had been created without her consent. She then tweeted, on July 7, that the creator of the video had messaged and apologized to her. “I have no ill will towards them, and next time this happens I will handle it differently,” the voice actor wrote. However, Lindbeck’s public request led to some Twitter users accusing her of leading a “harassment campaign” against the fan and caused her to delete her social media accounts on Twitter and Instagram.

The rising surge of AI has left many talents in the creative industry in precarious positions with many feeling anxious about what this means for their careers. In the case of voice actors, their voice is their livelihood and seeing AI having the ability to replicate their voice, and sound human, may mean companies no longer see the need to hire and pay human voice actors. Ethically, this also means, AI software also grants users the ability to make a voice say whatever they want to say. Some companies have also included clauses in their contracts that allows them unrestricted access to using their voice in other projects, without ever having to pay the voice actors nor needing their consent.

SAG-AFTRA, which stands for the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, is the union responsible for performance artists in the entertainment industry. SAG-AFTRA’s Jeffrey Bennett issued a letter regarding AI, saying it is subject to bargaining: “SAG-AFTRA maintains that the right to digitally replicate a performer’s voice or likeness to substantially manipulate a performance, or to create a new digital performance, is a mandatory subject of bargaining. In addition, the use of performer’s voice, likeness or performance to train an artificial intelligence system designed to generate new visual, audio, or audiovisual content is a mandatory subject of bargaining.”

Lindbeck’s voice acting career is extensive and she has portrayed numerous characters in anime including Kaori Miyazono from Your Lie in April, Eli Ayase from Love Live!, Daki from Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba and Lady Nagant from My Hero Academia. She has also voiced Emira Blight in the 2020 animated series The Owl House and Loa in Pacific Rim: The Black. Aside from Futaba from Persona 5, Lindbeck has also voiced Felicia Hardy/Black Cat from Spider-Man, Blaze the Cat and Omochao from Sonic the Hedgehog and Hrist from God of War Ragnarök.

Source: Twitter