[STEAM] The Voice of The Witcher's Geralt Says He'd Sue Every Single AI Platform With His Voice on It 'Into the Ground' if He Could

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Doug Cockle, the voice behind The Witcher’s Geralt, has hit out at AI platforms that feature his voice, saying he’d sue them if he could.

Speaking to

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, Cockle called AI replications of his voice “the bugbear of my life,” and expressed concern at the technology being used to make Geralt say awful things, which might then mislead some into thinking Cockle had actually provided the voice.

“If I had the power, the money, and the influence, I would sue every single AI platform out there with my voice on it. I would sue them into the ground,” he said.

“More than money or anything else is that they could make Geralt say horrible things. They could make Geralt a racist. They could make him a misogynist. They could make him have political views that are absolutely horrific.

“I’m being a little bit passionate about this, but it is the bugbear of my life at the moment. There are people behind these voices. They’re not just digital imprints.”

Cockle has been a vocal critic of generative AI,

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.

"AI is inevitable and developers will use AI. We are not 100% sure exactly what that means," Cockle said at the time. "They're already doing it in various ways, filling in background, NPC voices, and things like that, which is unfortunate because those voices were all human beings at one point, and the voices are all modelled on human beings. So they have taken someone's voice, put it into their database, digitized it and are using it to say things that the individual never said. There's something unethical about that and so there's a lot of debate going on."

Cockle was contacted by an AI company a few years ago who wanted to upload his Geralt voice to its database. "And I said no, and I still say no. But that's not because I don't like AI," he said.

"It's because I think with voice actors, particularly with voice actors who do main character roles, it is a reality that people are ripping our voices off. That's happening. It's happened to me on multiple occasions. I can't even police it because I would spend all my time policing this stupid stuff."

Even if people are using the voice with good intentions, like

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, it directly impacts voice actors, Cockle added. "Every time somebody does that, they're effectively robbing me of income, and not just me, any other voice actor who they do it with. We're all watching our voices get used in ways that we would rather they weren't."

It's when those using AI do have illicit purposes that it gets really scary though. "This is the bit that we really don't like about AI, is that if they can do it for things that are just commercially questionable, then they can do it with things that are politically or ethically bad," Cockle said.

"Somebody could use AI to produce something racist using Geralt's voice, using my voice, or just something against anything that most normal people think is good. That's where the AI gets dangerous. Fake news, false news, false opinions. We're seeing it with politicians now. People are putting things out there. So AI is not the problem. It's the people using AI."

Cockle continued: "It's changed a lot as well, because when The Witcher 3 came out, I don't think that people playing games, not that they weren't interested, but they didn't really think about who was voicing these characters. It wasn't something that was of great interest. But I've watched over the years, it has become more and more interesting to players and to fans who the people are behind these voices, and that's a fantastic thing. But it also means that those voices are much more personalized. It's not just Geralt. That is my voice."

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, and Assassin's Creed Syndicate voice actress

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after discovering her voice was used by cloning software. Paul Eiding, the voice actor behind Colonel Campbell in the Metal Gear Solid series, also

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.

The issue was raised again today when it emerged that Saber Interactive, the company behind Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2,

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— although it denied replacing an actual human writer with the tech.

The question is, can voice actors actually do anything about it? In July last year, video game actors voted to end a year-long strike over AI protections, with about 2,500 members of U.S. union SAG-Aftra involved in the action against 10 of the biggest companies in the industry, including Activision and Electronic Arts. In a statement released after the vote to end the strike, the union said a new contract secured "consent and disclosure requirements for AI digital replica use."

That, however, doesn't prevent anyone from using the established AI platforms to create fake videos featuring well-known video game characters saying and doing pretty much anything they want.

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on

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at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at *****@*****.tld.

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