SAG-AFTRA has filed an unfair labour practice charge against Fortnite maker Epic, following its use of AI to recreate James Earl Jones’ voice for Darth Vader.
Prior to his death, actor Jones – who along with Darth Vader also lent his vocal stylings to Disney’s The Lion King as Mufasa – gave permission for his voice to be replicated using AI, and technology was used to generate Vader’s voice in the Disney+ show Obi-Wan Kenobi. Jones’ AI-powered voice as the Star Wars Sith Lord then cropped up again last week, this time in Fortnite, where players could chat with Darth Vader via Epic’s online game.
The AI-generated voice used in Fortnite arrived with permission from Jones’ family, who said they hoped the collaboration with Epic would “allow both longtime fans of Darth Vader and newer generations to share in the enjoyment of this iconic character”. However, soon players began using the technology to get Darth to cuss, resulting in Epic swiftly issuing a hotfix to stop this from happening.
Now, American actors’ union SAG-AFTRA – which represents 160,000 American media professionals, including voiceover artists – has filed an unfair labour practice charge with the NLRB against Llama Productions, which is wholly owned by Epic Games. The union stated the company “chose to replace the work of human performers with AI technology… without providing any notice of their intent to do this and without bargaining with us over appropriate terms”.