‘Seems just plain wrong’: Hank Azaria, like the rest of us, fears AI

At this point, if you still support the broad usage of AI, I’m not sure what to tell you.

Hank Azaria, one of the best to ever do it, is yet another actor to sound the alarm on the future of the industry with the looming threat of AI. The Simpsons alum wrote an op-ed piece in The New York Times expressing concern about the disposability of living, breathing voice actors in the not-so-distant future.

Azaria wrote, “I imagine that soon enough, artificial intelligence will be able to re-create the sounds of the more than 100 voices I created for characters on The Simpsons over almost four decades. It makes me sad to think about it. Not to mention, it seems just plain wrong to steal my likeness or sound — or anyone else’s.”

He went on to address the soullessness of AI, writing, “I’d like to think that no matter how much an AI version of Moe or Snake or Chief Wiggum will sound like my voice, something will still be missing — the humanness. There’s so much of who I am that goes into creating a voice. How can the computer conjure all that?” He also stated that “our bodies and souls” go into the performance as much as the voice does.

Indeed, what many people don’t understand is that voice actors are just as physical as screen actors. We just don’t see it in person, but we can hear it in their performance. And that is what we need for a good, believable voice actor.

Humanness cannot be replicated

This is the exact kind of concern we should also have towards AI. Not just the jobs it will replace, but the life it will take out of media. Even now, you can usually tell that there is something off about an AI voice, no matter how well-done it is. Humans have minute inflections and emotions that are threaded all through our speech–robots could never hope to emulate those. They don’t have the past experiences that could bring out just the right amount of hurt in a voice. They don’t know joy.

I love the escapism of film and television. I love performances that are so good the lines are blurred and I forget that I’m watching something. If we continue to turn a blind eye to the rise of AI, how much longer will we enjoy quality storytelling? Azaria wonders the same thing, and finishes painting his bleak prediction with a flourish: “Believability is earned through craftsmanship, with good storytelling and good performances, good cinematography and good directing and a good script and good music.”