Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1538144
M OT I O N P I CTU R E S O U N D E D I TO R S 73 into foreign languages using text-to- speech capabilities, and for temp audio creation for testing instead of recording the actors' VO. There will be some great AI tools coming to make tedious tasks easier, but unfortunately, that will also mean fewer opportunities for junior sound designers, since less entry-level work will be needed due to automation. Hopefully, AI tools will enhance workflows and make mundane tasks more efficient—rather than replace large numbers of jobs. We don't really know the impact AI will have on game jobs yet; however, I think that human creativity and the ability to tell good stories will still be needed. Game sound designers will definitely need to stay on top of all the AI tools to continue to be relevant. I think it will be similar to the digital revolution that occurred in traditional linear film/TV editing. When the industry went from analog to digital, there was a culling of editors who didn't make it through the digital transition. AI hasn't made a huge impact on game audio yet, but I predict it will in the next few years. It will only take one revolutionary AI program to change the audio industry forever. Creating and designing the soundscape is what I enjoy the most, so I hope this part of the work doesn't go away completely and end up being automated by a bunch of AI tools and bots! If the machines create the sounds, then how do we retain a sense of feeling creative? If your job as a sound designer or editor isn't about designing or editing sounds, then what are you going to be doing? Will a lot of us want to pivot into different roles like being a sound supervisor or audio producer? I think in games there will be a continued need for technical sound designers who can run all the AI tools and wrangle all the different parts together—who also know advanced scripting and C++, and can write new audio tools. As AI tools evolve, if there are fewer sound designers working in the audio pipeline, I foresee the technical sound designer's role expanding into more of a creative job, and the lines between technical sound designer and sound designer will blur—or become one role. The future technical sound designer's job could involve even more creative decisions, because they are one of the last people tweaking the audio in the tools before the game is locked. Career Highlights & Turning Points "Being a part of the sound team for Jak II, and later Jak III and Jak X, was a very memorable time in my career." Looking back, which project do you consider a turning point in your career, and what made it particularly impactful? Caron: Working on Jak & Daxter II for Naughty Dog was definitely a major highlight. I was brought in-house as a sound designer with only about three months left before the ship date! Bruce Swanson, the audio lead, did an amazing job teaching me all of their proprietary tools in record time so that I could hit the ground running. Over those few months, I designed and implemented many hundreds of sounds into the Sony Scream tool on the PS2. In addition to learning the proprietary tools, we used Lisp-based scripting to implement certain sounds into the game. Since this was well before the days of Wwise and FMOD, many of the levels required the help of multiple programmers to hook up the sounds—often involving physically running around to programmers' desks, tracking down who to talk to, and making sure each sound got implemented correctly! It was a fun sprint right to the end, working with such a talented dev team who were all very passionate about delivering a game with such groundbreaking graphics technology at that time. The company's original founders, Andy Gavin and Jason Rubin, were still running the company, which made it a particularly transformative and inspiring time to learn from them directly. Being a part of the sound team for Jak II, and later Jak III and Jak X , was a Open AI's Chat GPT, an example of a Text to Speech generator 2025.