Ashly Burch has played numerous video game characters, one of her most famous being Aloy in Guerrilla’s Horizon series. Earlier this year, footage leaked showing a Sony employee engaging with an on-screen AI version of the Horizon lead. The employee asked the AI Aloy a number of questions, such as “how are you”, to which the character replied she was ok, before she shared some Horizon lore.
The whole thing raised a few eyebrows, especially considering Aloy is a character growing up in a post-apocalyptic world overrun by rogue AI-controlled machines.
Burch herself released a video following this leak, stating developer Guerrilla had been in contact with her to say the “demo didn’t reflect anything that was actively in development”. She additionally added Sony “didn’t use any of [Burch’s] performance” for the demo. But, how would she feel if AI was used in the next Horizon game?
“For me, I think that AI as a tool to make things easier on devs would be a great thing. Like, I think I’ve heard someone say before something like, ‘oh, if we used artificial intelligence to help with clean up between the mo-cap stage and importing it into the actual game engine, that could be amazing’. So, things that help streamline the development process [and] help make people’s jobs easier, I think is great,” Burch told Eurogamer.
That being said, for Burch, “in terms of if someone asked me ‘can we make a replica of you that players could interact with ad nausium’,” she would “really have to know how [the developer] was going to protect against me saying something awful”. This is, of course, something Epic got into hot water with earlier this year, when its use of AI to recreate James Earl Jones’ voice for Fortnite’s Darth Vader saw many using the technology to get the Sith lord to cuss.
Burch believes the use of AI “would have to be a conversation” with those involved. “It’s such a new technology, so it’s difficult to know what applications developers would want to use it for,” she said, before adding: “Guerrilla really cares about performance in its games, and I think a universe where Guerrilla just replaces every single actor they have with a robot is not going to happen.”
However, Burch says there are some studios who do want to use AI to “generate what they want when they want”.
“So, it becomes a conversation of ‘what do you want to use this for, what are you trying to get out of this technology. Are you trying to replace my performance? Or are you trying to streamline your process or trying to find out in the pre-production phase how things would sound in my voice?’ I think it becomes a ‘use case’ thing for me.”
Burch additionally wants others to get the chances she did when she was starting out as a video games actor. She says she wants others to be able to have this same experience as she has, to say “I want to be a games actor” and to then be able to develop their skills and do just that.
“A lot of those characters that I cut my teeth on, like doing callouts in a MOBA, those things are at risk of being replaced,” Burch said.
“I think that kind of work is essential for people to be A) able to make rent, and then B) be able to hone their craft and get better. It’s important to me that actors continue to have the opportunity to act,” Burch closed, although she appreciates that as a “tool devs can use”, AI could have its place.
For more, you can check out my full chat with Burch – Ashly Burch gets into bed with puppets to talk about mental health – here.