Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1521235
M OT I O N P I CTU R E S O U N D E D I TO R S 47 ReSpeecher. Another case was an actor who was contractually obligated to do 115 regional television spots. The actor didn't want to record all of them. They used the software, and he didn't have to. There was an ethical question about the use of an actor's voice who has passed on. Getting the permission from the estate is considered the ethical and legal imperative. Mitch quoted an author on disruptive technologies, Clayton Christensen, "Good companies don't fail because of radical new ideas, they fail because of their approach and their reaction to these new ideas." Mitch feels that this is where we are now. "Instead of pushing back on AI, we really have to foster its use but in a way that is ethical, trusting, and transparent, all of the things that create trust in the use of AI." Dustin agrees with Mitch. Eleven Labs has created a Go No Go list of voices that their service will not clone in this election year. Also, Eleven Labs will have a speech classifier so anyone can upload a clip of dialogue to see if it was created with Eleven Labs. If it was, Eleven Labs can take the appropriate steps to deal with the illegal use. They feel that they are taking proactive steps to safeguard its use. Brian sees AI tools as making a better end product and possibly faster. As a company owner, why he chose to use AI tool early on: "… you're in the water on a board and the wave is coming. Are you going to paddle and go with the wave, or you going to just get crushed by it? It's coming." In a case use for trans-lingual usage, a native speaker will still be needed to perform the lines for the cloned voice to follow. If the source voice doesn't follow the target voice's style, it won't sound as much as the original actor's voice. In addition, foreign versions of well-known actors have been using native voices for years. Local audiences might not be as accepting of the original actor speaking their language. It may take time to adjust. Bob made a comparison with the conversion from film and tape to digital editor. All the panelists see AI tools as an opportunity to create more and better content. Brian was asked if any jobs at Levels Audio have been lost? He replied, "No." They don't use it on the mixing stage as the stages are "air" gaped. His dialogue editors use the AI tools for the most part to improve their edit. Bob asked where they think we will be in a year? Mitch felt that everyone will get more comfortable with AI tools across all aspects of entertainment, from pre-production to post- production. We're just at the beginning. Dustin agrees that it is going to be part of the flow. We're going to have more and better content. Brian states that there will be a continued advancement of quality, not just in sound, but across the board. There may be a contraction in some jobs, but other opportunities will open up. Production values will go up. The quality of sound will be better and as a result will tell a better story. There was a consensus among the panelists that Avid may integrate AI tools. losing remarks were presented by Audrey Schomer, Media Analyst & Research Editor for Variety. As part of the research to understand AI's impact on the entertainment industry, Variety conducted a series of polls of industry professionals. (She calls "above the line," creatives, and "below the line," workers.) The first were from AI and machine learning programmers. That poll didn't show much concern about AI affecting the industry. Directors, actors, grips and PA's were the focus group of one of the next surveys. In that poll, a near 50% consensus was that AI could be used to create sound effects, game programming, 3D assets, artwork, and voices. In that survey, writing was about a 30% concern. In one of the last surveys of industry "workers" on the concern about negative impacts of AI, 72%-84% had concerns that AI would impact a range of areas from misleading deep fakes, copyright infringement, to loss of jobs. Audrey's concern is that we do not reject AI out of fear but embrace AI tools and learn to use them to our advantage. Videos of the day-long conference of panel discussions and multimedia presentations are available on the Television Academy's website as of the writing of this article at: https:// www.emmys.com/news/academy- news/2024-artificial-intelligence- summit-full-program. The sound- specific panel is the sixth video. C