Would Fox Really Replace ‘Simpsons’ Voice Actors With A.I.?
Hank Azaria can see the handwriting on Mrs. Krabappel’s chalkboard. “I imagine that soon enough, artificial intelligence will be able to recreate the sounds of the more than 100 voices I created for characters on The Simpsons over almost four decades,” he writes in an op/ed in today’s New York Times. But that doesn’t mean he has to like it.
“It seems just plain wrong to steal my likeness or sound,” Azaria argues, “or anyone else’s.”
But the longtime Simpsons voice actor believes he has a more compelling argument for why Fox shouldn’t replace him with artificial intelligence just yet — it won’t be as good. “I’d like to think that no matter how much an A.I. version of Moe or Snake or Chief Wiggum will sound like my voice, something will still be missing — the humanness,” he explains. “There’s so much of who I am that goes into creating a voice. How can the computer conjure all that?”
Don't Miss
Has Azaria been talking to Nic Cage? His case for humanity sounds an awful lot like Cage’s anti-A.I. rant this weekend at the Saturn Awards. “I am a big believer in not letting robots dream for us,” Cage said, according to Variety. “Robots cannot reflect the human condition for us. That is a dead end if an actor lets one A.I. robot manipulate his or her performance even a little bit, an inch will eventually become a mile and all integrity, purity and truth of art will be replaced by financial interests only. We can’t let that happen.”
Azaria doesn’t think the robots can do the job — not yet, anyway. He describes the physicality that he, Dan Castellaneta and Harry Shearer put into their performances, adding extra realism to the sound of a character chopping wood or chomping a cigar by performing the actions as they speak. Could a computer do that? “It’s the neck-up version that I can see A.I. being capable of, at least right now,” he says. “The body and soul part will be harder.”
That’s undoubtedly true, but Cage probably has the more realistic insight — changes like these may occur over time because of “financial interests only.” Online chatbots available today allow you to “talk” to Homer Simpson, using a pretty-darn-close voice that must have been generated by sampling old Simpsons episodes. (I doubt Castellaneta is getting a check.) The chats are free. Azaria makes $300,000 an episode. Do the math.
Ironically, Azaria wouldn’t mind using A.I. if he could have more of the late Mel Blanc performing as Bugs Bunny. “Maybe it would work especially well if someone like me, who is intimately familiar with the subtleties of the character, could help recreate what Bugs Bunny was doing by essentially directing A.I.,” he says, undercutting his argument about allowing computers to replicate the work of actual humans.
The Simpsons has no current plans to replace Azaria (or contracts in place to replicate his voice), but he’s no dummy. “The conventional wisdom in Hollywood is that the technology for making faces seem fully human is five years away,” he acknowledges. “I fear that the voice equivalent is also coming.”
