Cyberpunk 2077 recently found itself at the center of discussions with the release of the Phantom Liberty DLC. However, this time he is attracting attention for a rather unusual reason.
Polish video game developer CD Projekt has placed Cyberpunk 2077 in the spotlight for a reason as unusual as it is intriguing, and which turns out to be in harmony with the dystopian universe of the game. Let’s see the details… This may launch a new controversy.
Cyberpunk 2077 and the use of AI
Thus, according to Bloomberg, CD Projekt used artificial intelligence to simulate the voice of the late Polish actor Miłogost Reczek, who died in 2021, in Phantom Liberty, the RPG’s DLC. Importantly, the company took care to contact Reczek’s family and obtained their permission to recreate his voice using AI. Although CD Projekt considered finding a replacement and re-recording the late actor’s original lines, the final decision was to keep him involved in the franchise.
“We netions not in favor of this approach,” says Mikołaj Szwed, director of localization at CD Projekt, when discussing the option of using a new actor. Szwed praised Reczek as “one of the best Polish vocal talents” and praised her performance in the video game, judging her “exceptional“.
The process of using AI to replicate Reczek’s voice required hiring another actor. To then record the lines of his character, then the use of Ukrainian voice cloning software, Respeecher. This tool generated an algorithm that altered the new actor’s voice to make it sound like Reczek’s. It’s a story…
An open debate?
Szwed said Reczek’s sons “were very supportive of this method.” A way, in a certain way, of perpetuating the presence of their father. Note that the use of artificial intelligence remains a hotly debated subject in the audiovisual sector, particularly in Hollywood. Industry professionals wonder if their talent could be supplanted by technology, while others anticipate that AI will only enhance the capabilities of Hollywood creators.
Despite the resolution of the WGA strike, the employment of AI remains an ongoing point of contention between the two groups. For some players, AI raises autonomy issues. Tim Friedlander of the National Association of Voice Actors said at Comic Con in July: “As a human voice actor, I can walk into a room and be given a script that says something I wouldn’t agree to say or something I would never say. I personally have the ability to leave this room” says Friedlander. The underlying risk here is that an actor’s voice can be exploited to say inappropriate or even dangerous things.