Skyrim is getting talked about, but not for good reasons. And besides, it’s not even his fault! But it turns out that currently the game is at the center of a controversy because of mods, AI and pornography.
With Starfield looming on the horizon and The Elder Scrolls 6 on everyone’s lips, that’s good Skyrim which has the heavy task of consoling fans of RPG made in Bethesda. And he may even console them a little too much with content that is currently causing controversy. We are talking here about pornographic mods, but not only, which abound on specialized sites. And if their content is already enough to make you blush, in every sense of the word, it is above all the way in which these in-house content are made that poses a problem. And not a small one.
Yes, Skyrim is a modded nest. Any PC player will tell you, it is with these that the game is at its best. Bethesda has even allowed itself to optimize some of them to release yet another version of its game; but if the community of fans has certainly talent, some tend to slip a little.
Voice actors, virtual pornstars without their knowledge in Skyrim
This is particularly the case for creators of pornographic content who have fun designing mods labeled NSFW, and there is something for everyone. Like it or not, it does exist and it’s perfectly legal, or almost. Some of these mods have indeed recently created controversy not because of their content, but the way they were created. A handful of modders are indeed using AI to generate dialogue and put voices on their characters and others. The catch is that they use voice actresses and professional dubbing actors. And that doesn’t happen.
Following a Twitter post listing several actors whose voices were used to generate pornographic content via AI, controversy erupted. Beyond the fact that it is questionable content, the actors in question have especially pointed the finger at the fact that their voice was used without any authorization to create content on which they had no regard. In other words, nothing goes in the story and they are a handful who have spoken like Benjamin Diskin (The Elder Scrolls Online), who openly criticized this kind of content, claiming that they never gave their consent.
Or Ryan Laughton (Diablo 4) who, meanwhile, seems shocked to see that voice cloning via AI is so powerful and above all totally out of control. On his social networks, the latter even appeals to players to help him report this kind of practice. He too, like his colleagues, says he never gave his consent, on the contrary, he is totally against this kind of practice.
An association challenges
Mods that are visibly, totally in respect
In any case, this is what reports Nexus Mods, the most famous mod platform where you can find thousands of free content created by the community. It is on this platform that we find most of the NSFW mods generated from Skyrim which are problematic. According to Nexus Mods therefore, everything is normal. None of these mods violate the rules of the site’s charter. Modders can therefore not be worried about the site itself. It now remains to be seen whether the voice actors and associations stop there. Zenimax and Bethesda meanwhile, have not commented at the time of writing.