My Take on the Erica Lindbeck Controversy
If you’ve been online over the last few months, you might have heard about the controversy surrounding the use of AI. Recent advancements in AI technology have led to a boom in the use of artificial intelligence for things such as writing, creating art, and even imitating people’s voices. While some might see it as a helpful tool to make our lives easier, there are people with good reason to be wary of its use. Many talented people make a living from writing, artwork, and voice acting. Those same people may now risk losing that livelihood, but not everyone seems to care about this. Case in point, Erica Lindbeck, a talented voice actress, just quit social media for trying to stand up for herself against AI.
What Happened to Erica Lindbeck?
Erica Lindbeck is a young and up-and-coming voice actress who has gotten several high-profile roles over the last few years. She’s had roles in everything from Dragon Ball to Persona and Fire Emblem to The Owl House and the popular web series Helluva Boss. She also happened to date fellow voice Billy Kametz, the voice of Josuke in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure and Naofumi in Shield Hero, until his untimely death from cancer in June 2022.
I wasn’t aware of this until after the fact, but the controversy started a few days ago online. Erica Lindbeck discovered that someone had used a voice-generated AI of her character, Futaba Sakura from Persona V, to make a cover song without her consent. She asked the person to remove the video, but others were not as understanding and responded by criticizing her on social media. Rather than deal with the flame war this would generate, Erica opted to remove herself from the equation. Currently, she’s deleted her social media accounts on Twitter and Instagram.
This is Part of a Larger Problem
In the wake of Erica’s departure from social media, other voice actors have spoken up in her defense. With AI becoming able to mimic their voices and do their work for them, many voice actors fear that they may lose their jobs.
While some may see this as paranoia, their concerns might be justified. In recent months, countless videos using voice-generated AI have started appearing on YouTube. While made for fun rather than out of malice, this is still a major problem for the people whose voice they’re using: none of it’s done with their consent.
Voice acting may seem like a fun job (and it likely can be), but what people need to remember is that it’s still a job. At the end of the day, people depend on the work they do as voice actors to pay the bills. If they can get replaced in favor of cheaper AI, then they’ll be out of a job! And the continued use of AI like this only encourages people to do it more, further exacerbating the problem.
We Need to Be Smarter About This New Power
As for where I personally stand regarding this, I am torn. On the one hand, I find the advancement of AI to the point where it can mimic other people’s voices impressive. This could enable us to create works of fiction that feature the voices of people long since dead and buried, like Michael Jackson, Robin Williams, and even Elvis. On the other hand, it’s making the job of voice actors like Erica Lindbeck harder than it already is by cutting them out of the equation. And that’s not even getting into issues like how AI could be used to write articles and create artwork in place of actual people.
I don’t think AI is an inherently bad thing. It could benefit humanity in the long run if we ensure it cannot go Skynet or Ultron on us. When applied in a responsible manner, it could even be a useful tool for writers, artists, and people with similar professions rather than an outright replacement. Since the technology’s still so new, though, how we decide to use it now could decide what’s ethically permitted ten, even twenty years from now. The bottom line is we need to be responsible with this new power, or else bad stuff’s going to happen like seeing popular entertainment icons bailing on social media.
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