Entire French Voice Cast of Apex Legends Rejects AI Training Agreement
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Key points
- All actors from the French voice cast of Apex Legends rejected a contract clause allowing their voices to be used for AI training.
- As of 2024, EA had over a hundred AI-related projects.
- US Voice actors express concerns about AI as well with the help of SAG-AFTRA strikes.
The whole French cast of Apex Legends has rejected a contract clause that would have allowed their voices to be used to train generative AI. Apex Legends’ developer is Respawn Entertainment, owned by Electronic Arts, which is also the game’s publisher.
Pascale Chemin, the French voice of Wraith in Apex Legends, shared the news in a post on social media, revealing that the cast had been presented with an agreement from the game’s publisher, EA, that would allow AI systems to use their vocal performances for training. While Apex Legends was not explicitly named, Chemin tagged her fellow voice actors in the post, all of whom used to work on Apex Legends before.
“I was now forced to give up the role I had been working on for almost six years,” Chemin wrote.
The French voice actors rejected the clause, sending a collective letter to EA with their refusal. “We are waiting for an answer,” Chemin added, stressing that without proper safeguards in their contracts, voice actors would face a dire future. “We are asked to give up our expertise to train the generative AI that will replace us tomorrow,” she said.
As of 2024, EA had over 100 AI-related projects, with CEO Andrew Wilson declaring that AI is “the very core of our business.”
The growing use of AI in voice acting has become a point of contention within the acting community, especially as unions like SAG-AFTRA continue to push back against what they see as exploitative practices.
