How To Navigate AI Voice Work with Bill DeWees

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Hi there and welcome to Vox Talk, your weekly review from the world of voiceover. I'm your host, Stephanie Ciccarelli from Voices. Well, there's a lot of interest in AI voiceover, and I know you're interested, there isn't a whole lot of guidance around it, what it means to you, where it's going. We've had lots of conversations on the subject, but we have not yet heard the thoughts of Bill DeWees. We're gonna talk about AI voice, how he sees it, and also how we might all see it also from a business standpoint. I don't know if we'll do a SWOT analysis on this thing, but we are so going to go into the AI voice realm with Bill DeWees today. So, Bill, welcome back to the show.

Bill DeWees:

Stephanie thank you. I'm thrilled to be here.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Yes, it's always so good to have you here, I must say. So, Bill, you have thoughts on AI voice. Why don't you walk us through those?

Bill DeWees:

Well, you know, it's interesting because the AI thing, we're still relatively new to voiceover, but the thing is technology and the way it affects business, that's not a new thing. We've been seeing, watching that for decades. And so I think some things become predictable. And I think it's safe to say that AI, if it hasn't already, will very soon have an effect on our business. I was having breakfast this morning with a friend who's another (he's a voice actor) and we were having this very conversation, as a matter of fact. And one of the things that he said to me, and it was such a great analogy and he said, ‘Well, look at music. And if you look at people who score for movies and for film and TV, the idea of using like a studio musician and hiring a full orchestra and all of that, for the most part now there are exceptions, but for the most part, those days are gone. Everything is sampled. It's VSTs, virtual instruments. You know, the great composers, they don't go out and hire musicians. For the most part, they are the musician and they can bring all of these tools are at their disposal because the strings were sampled at Abbey Road Studio in England. You know, the drums were sampled, Capital Records in Los Angeles, and all you have to do is you can buy them online for a fraction of what it would cost to hire somebody to do this. And with a keyboard or some sort of Midi controller and the software, you can create world class music. So it's been happening, and that's just one example, but this has been happening and it's certainly displaced, you know studio musicians have to find other ways to work now because they were making top dollar. I'm sure there were men and women who could call on every week being called into a major studio in New York or Los Angeles to play, who now sit at home waiting for opportunities and so the question then becomes, ‘well, is this going to have an effect?’ Yeah, obviously. I mean, it has an effect, but the question becomes, ‘How do we respond to that?’ And I think there's one of two things. The thing I think you have to understand about me, and I think Stephanie, you already get this. We've talked enough, is that when it comes to business, I play offense. I don't play defense. I'm not the person that will say, ‘Okay, how can I protect my turf? How can I keep this from happening?’ Because it's a foregone conclusion. It's going to happen. I mean, look at Uber has had its effect on the cab industry. Cars have taken over horse and buggy. You could go back 100 years and we could just see this happen over and over and over. And so if you don't adapt, you die. You get trampled. You'll be left in the dust. So it's not a question of ‘How can we stop it? How can we protect our turf?’ Because you cannot stop it. The question is, ‘What is it going to do? What will be its effect and how do we capitalize on it? Is there an opportunity for us?’ I think there is.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

So many opportunities. We've had great guests on in the past, like Bev Standing, and she talked about kind of the work that she was doing and how that's evolved over time, but how she's not afraid of the work. It's more or less just getting the right agreements in place and knowing how your voice will use. We talked to people like Susan Bennett, of course, the original voice of Siri, and just what her journey with AI has been and that kind of thing. And then people who have worked in production, Oscar Sanchez, when he was on, he was talking about this sort of thing too, just like what you were saying. It's very much everywhere. Like the sports highlight reels. I see you've got your Cincinnati Bengals sweater on there. Like all these kind of pregame postgame little compilations. They're not people putting them together anymore. It's actually the AI that is pulling this information and finding a way to present it to us in a way that is quite palatable, actually. So you're absolutely right that it is not going away. It is everywhere. It's ubiquitous, you might say. And that's just kind of the landscape right now. So I guess where do you see us going from here?

Bill DeWees:

Well, I think the first thing is you have to ask it, ‘Where are we now with it? Where's it at? And do I need to be concerned today?’ So as I hear AI, I think it's definitely a technology that's in development. It's not mature yet. It leaves a lot to be desired. I don't fear for my work today. I saw an ad on Facebook. It popped up the other day. Stephanie what was the headline? It said something along the line of no one could believe that this was AI. So I thought, oh, I've got to give it a listen. So I did. I could tell it was AI immediately. So technology doesn't understand context and emotion the way that human beings do. So the thing that here's what I wrestle with. Because if I'm looking at a script, I'm telling a story and I'm putting myself in the shoes of the person who's telling that story, and I can visualize it, I can see it, I understand. I know in terms of dynamics, how I want to approach it, where I want to give emphasis, where I want to pause, where I reflect, and how I feel the emotion that's generated. How far will a computer be able to go to do that? Even as I watch video games. And that's huge. I mean, obviously I think it's bigger than the music and movie industries combined right now, the video game. But as good as the graphics have become, when I'm looking at the face of a video game, it still to me doesn't communicate the emotion and intensity that a real actor can do. And I don't know that that can ever take that place. And I'm not saying video games are going away. I think there's a place obviously, it's huge. You can't argue with success, but how far will that go? Well, I think it'll go farther than it is. But I think there will always be a place and here's where I start, I think there will always be a place for voiceover talent who have developed a skill set that allows them to communicate authentically and genuinely, because that's what people want to hear, somebody they can trust. And they trust voices that make them feel something, who identify with a script that's genuineness and authenticity. How far? I don't think the AI is going to go all that terribly far. So what I see happening is kind of two things developing. I see those who do. I don't want to call it live, but we'll call a live voiceover for our purposes. And then there's the automated or the AI voice. And I think the AI voice work is going to go towards things, towards what would we say, lower pay work or things that are more mun- I don't say mundane because I do this kind of work and if I get paid, I love it. To me, nothing's mundane that I get paid for. But things like perhaps on hold type marketing or something where somebody needs to change a voice frequently for their business on hold or customer service, where we're not selling a product or it doesn't have to be terribly compelling. The information itself is going to be what's paramount. So I see those things gravitating, those types of niches gravitating. First to AI, I think some elearning, but even elearning, I think the really good content developers and training specialists understand that people connect with people. And it's not just words. If it was, they would just give them a PowerPoint presentation. But they need human emotion and people who understand context to connect. So again, I think it's going to kind of eat up at the bottom end in terms of the page here. That's where it's going to go first, because those people are looking for good sounding voices, not necessarily great voice actors. They're looking for voices that sound good. And then as you go higher up, that pay tier where that cut off will be, I'm not sure at this point. And it will probably evolve over time as AI gets better. So for me, what I'm looking for and I'm in the process, we were talking about this before we started, I'm kind of beginning to shop this around. I want to find what my opportunity is because I would love to have people use my voice within the context of AI to generate money while I'm sleeping at night, you know, because there are some people that will never pay me my rate. And that's fine. I don't need everybody to I just need a handful of people to make a good living doing this. But there may be hundreds or thousands of people out there that would use my voice within an AI context. And so that's what I'm looking at right now for down the road. I know that's a lot of information, but that's kind of my vision of where we're at and where I think we're going and how I personally want to capitalize on it.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Yeah, all of that, that is a lot of information, but I think some of the points that stood out to me were that AI voice, it doesn't understand context. AI does not understand what we as human beings know because of how we're made.

Bill DeWees:

And it doesn't feel

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

And it doesn't feel exactly and it certainly doesn't, I don't think it can even make inferences if it's context. It doesn't understand context.

Bill DeWees:

Not yet

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

It probably can't even go further into where it would need to be, whereas a human would be like, I think I said something. I'm going to pivot where I'm going with this. I'm going to change direction because I've picked up on something that's suggesting to me that perhaps there's a different meaning in all of this. It doesn't feel, it doesn't think for itself, and it certainly doesn't connect on an emotional level. But the question is, can we actually trust these voices? Because so much of trust comes from that emotional sort of pull, that knowing that this person has at least what we think is the best interest in mind for those are speaking to, whereas a machine doesn't really have that. They don't have or machines, I should say, do not have souls, and they cannot think like we do. So for anybody out there who's wondering about like, authenticity and that I know in the past episode, I brought this up with I think it was Jay Acunzo, and Jay was talking about this. I think that the AI has entered into his sphere, which is writing into that world in ways that are actually being punished by Google. AI takes pieces and bits and this and that of words to make an article that isn't written by a human. It's not content made by a human. For a human, then it certainly is shaking things up with the content on that side of ranking on the web. So nobody, go and, do not have AI write your articles in your blog. Let's just put it there. But from what I can see also, what he was talking about is that AI wouldn't have perspective, it wouldn't have a point of view. Right?

Bill DeWees:

Exactly.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

And so when you lack some kind of a way of seeing something, a world view or just your understanding of how things are, then that in turn is going to result in having like, almost no credibility in that sense, because it's not coming from a place of rooted confidence in what it's saying.

Bill DeWees:

Yes, and I think we have to prepare ourselves for the worst because as we said, you know, 20 years ago, we would have a conversation if somebody said, well, someday we will carry these telephone devices around which allow us to use an app. We'd say, that's nuts, that could never happen. So, you know, I'm very careful to say, oh, that'll never happen. Although I'm thinking I can't imagine that it would happen. Who knows? I mean, 10, 20 years from now, who knows? So prepare for the worst. But I think it's safe to say there will always be a place for live voice talent. What that will look like, we don't know for sure. It's interesting, some of my clients now are using AI for scratch tracks, which frankly, I don't find helpful at all.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

That is weird because it's supposed to give you an indication of how someone would sound reading or how you should go about the reading, unless they're sitting there like tweaking every little tiny emotion and the height and the pitch of this and the inflection of that,

Bill DeWees:

And they're not. I would have them read it even though maybe their voice doesn't sound as nice. But I think that speaks to the idea that most people, if you're not a voice actor, you think in terms of voice over being, people have nice voices. Whereas we understand people don't hire us because we have nice voices. They hire us – It doesn't hurt to have a nice voice – but they hire us because we're able to connect on a much deeper level. And that's what compels people.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Yes, I think so, too. And one other crazy thing I thought I would bring into the conversation,

Bill DeWees:

Oh oh!

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

But in the last episode, well, I guess it's kind of crazy. It was when James Poulter from Vixen Labs was on with us talking about AI voice and of course, he's with a company that helps facilitate the making of these voices. And he was saying, oh my goodness, AI voice is not just going to be used in one language only for that purpose. Like, you could actually take someone's voice and make it speak multiple languages, and like, what that's out of this world?

Bill DeWees:

That hadn’t even crossed my mind, Stephanie. And of course, sure, why not?

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

So people wonder, well, what's going to happen to dubbing? What's going to happen to any number of other things? And will this be widely adopted? And what about in the celebrity realm? Because you have people who will dub the voice of, say, George Clooney in this country, or they're the voice of Julia Roberts in that country, and that's their gig. Everyone in that country knows and loves that person. They almost see them as the actor, as the voice that they've become familiar with and have memories, and just so if you were to try to replace that with like, say, I don't know, take George Clooney's voice in English and then make it speak, I don't know, Spanish, Chinese,

Bill DeWees:

Sure

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Any number of languages. I don't know if that would actually attack the business of the people who are voicing as him because it's developed over time. Again, like a brand affinity with the voice talent who has been the voice of that on camera app.

Bill DeWees:

You're opening up all kinds of cans of worms here. I know you're taking this further than I read. You have a much broader perspective. I mean, my perspective is from what I do, which is fairly narrow, but you have a very broad perspective of the industry. So that's thought provoking and scary at the same time. But what I think is really important is that we have to have the ability to pivot. And I think this goes back to and many have heard me say this before, and I think you'll understand where I'm coming from, but ultimately, I don't think of myself as a voice talent or voice actor. I think of myself as a business person. Because if you're focused solely on a product, you'll have a hard time maneuvering when things change, because products, they come in, they go out, they change. But I think if you have an understanding of marketing. Then you can make those pivots and you can shift and you can adapt and you can see how markets work and then say. If this is shifting. How can I shift to satisfy this market instead of being frozen into this mold that we think that we have to operate in while time passes us by and there's no demand any more for what we're doing. And if you're a purist and you're a voice actor and that's the way you see yourself and that's all you want to do, that's fine. But there may come a point in time where you see things kind of passing you by, at least the way that you have done them in the past. And I think having an understanding of marketing is going to help you make those shifts and adjustments and adapt again so that you're not looking at the dust being stirred up as the parade passes by you and you're wondering what in the world just happened?

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Right. And it makes me think also of and you'll remember how there was a transition from the VCRs and the VHS tapes and Betamax and then all of a sudden they're on like these DVDs. And I'm not an expert in this area, but it is always good to think one technology will always be improved by another technology. And the contracts that you have in place for how your voice is used in any variety of technologies, like if you're not thinking about what might come next and you might find that, well, I only had licensing rights for my voice on VHS and Betamax, but not on DVD. Now we've got DVDs, now we've got, you know, streaming audio, now we've got whatever it might be, right?

Bill DeWees:

And that blows everything up big time before it yeah. So there's no way to accurately predict where this is going to go for sure. There's going to be a lot of, a lot of what we say probably will happen. There will be things that pop up that we have not even fathomed at this point that we just don't know. And that's okay. I just think it's important that we know that it's going to be that way. And to say, okay, I'm not going to dig my feet in and say I'm going to make Custer's Last Stand right here, this is not going to be it for me. As things change, I will change and adapt. And thankfully there are people like you and Voices, which has the educational component covered as well. So we know what's going on and we can learn to make those pivots as we need to. And I think the older we get, I'm speaking, generally speaking, these things may become a little bit more difficult because back in my day, I find myself saying that more and more to my kids back in my day, and of course that never flies, but nobody wants to hear that. Nobody cares. It's what's going on right now and you have to stay relevant or maybe decide to retire and go out to pasture and just do your thing and let everything else move by. But if you're interested in playing this game for the long haul, I think you got to stay plugged in and I think you guys are just a great resource for that.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Well, thank you, Bill. And definitely the thing plugged in. I know there have been conferences that we've attended in the AI realm and also just knowing a lot of people and as I've said to our talent and anyone I've mentored and just anybody really, is that you have to understand the ecosystem. You have to understand that you are part of a much bigger group of people in different areas of life and in different professions, but that you're all helpful to one another in some way or you relate in some way, and you need to understand that. So just think for a moment here of who all is involved in AI voice, who are these characters on the stage? And you have voice talent. You have people who are voice designers. Like, there are people who actually make that, how to do that.

Bill DeWees:

That's a job?

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Oh, yeah, like just people who like the voice agencies. And this is a term that people often get confused. This is like, oh, what a talent age is like. No, voice agencies, they're companies that help make the voices and like, what? And so that's a kind of a different thing for people to hear, who are used to hearing about talent agents. And they think, oh, a voice agency. Well, I know what that is. You might not. You might not, because these people are calling themselves voice agencies. And that's what they're doing is they're creating voices. But at any rate, I think it's important, as you say, to stay on top of what's going on, but also to know who the players are, to if you yourself are not going to be following the AI kind of path and watching everything that goes on, because you certainly can't do everything all the time. Then find some thought leaders who are doing that, that you trust and be like, okay, well, I'm going to see whatever so and so is bringing, because they're going to have a view of their own, some kind of perspective, as we’d say, on what's going on, and maybe follow a few people. So you get a flavor of that and to keep that perspective broad. But it just seems like this is a ‘let's see what happens’ in this field, and understand, because as I had said of it earlier, there's technologies that come and go. Certainly I remember even watching in schools, how we used to, and you might remember this, but they would write on like they had projectors, and the teacher would write on some, like, a plastic sheet, and it would be…

Bill DeWees:

Yes, The overhead display. Yes, oh my gosh, I forgot about that one.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

The fan’s going, it's getting hot. The markers smell,

Bill DeWees:

Grease pencil. Yeah.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Yeah, and then from there, it was like, okay, well, I guess we're not using projectors. Maybe we'll have some information on a television screen. And then all of a sudden, it was like these smart boards and going over the Internet and people everything changes, but it's just another vehicle to get you what you need. So AI is yes, another vehicle to give people information, mostly information, as we've seen. But entertainment, I think it's still a far cry away from being able to do that properly. But when it comes to getting information, like actual useful small bursts of information that people can use. Like an update to something like your gate changed at the airport. The stock ticker is going. There's some update to a phone system and they don't want to have to go back and get the artist to do it because they've got the AI voice. They just plug in a new extension. Like, these are the very basic, fundamental, quick and easy jobs that humans technically had been doing, but AI is now. One place I really don't like hearing AI though, is on people's blogs. I hate when you play or play my article like, oh my gosh, it's so awful. It depends on what technology they're using because it might not be the latest and greatest AI iteration. It might be one of the older ones that doesn't have the nuance or the same abilities as one of the later technologies. So I don't know. We've just got to keep watching what's going on here. I think Bill, and I'm so grateful that there are coaches like you who are dedicated to trying to not just understand what's going on, but to pursue it, to pursue knowledge, and to know like, well, how do I fit into this? Where does this, like, where are we as voice talent going to have opportunity? Where might there be threats that we should be concerned with? And how else might we actually view this so that going forward, we're not afraid of it, we know how to handle it and we're also aware of what it actually means. Right?

Bill DeWees:

And let me add this because I don't think we really talked about this at all, and that is don't think because the technology is advancing that your skill set becomes less important. If anything, it's just the opposite. I think, and I talked about the marketing, think of yourself as more than a voice actor, but you need to make sure your skills continue to develop and you're sharp because if anything, it's going to be more important. You have to become more competitive, especially if the pool begins to shrink in terms of live talent as the AI. And I'm not predicting I don't know exactly what that's going to look like, but I do think you're going to stay sharp from a performance standpoint and you need to expand your horizons from a business and marketing standpoint and keep your head on a swivel, be watching what's going on and find out how you fit into the grand scheme of things.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Perfect. And I think that is just the most wonderful way to wrap things up today. Just keep on watching and seeing what's going on. Remember that there are a lot of people out here who are looking into these matters and you can follow, you know, thought leaders in AI or certainly what we're doing here at Voices and just keep listening to Vox Talk because whenever something happens in the industry, we're typically going to talk about it. We're going to bring on great guests like Bill,

Bill DeWees:

You're all over it.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Yeah. Who can explore these wonderful conversations with us. So, Bill, thank you so much for being with us today.

Bill DeWees:

Thank you, Stephanie.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

If anyone would like to get a hold of you to learn more about what you're doing, where should they go?

Bill DeWees:

Go to BillDeWeesLive.com.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Perfect. That is amazing. Well, thank you so much for being here, Bill, and we'll see you again next time.

Bill DeWees:

Thanks, Stephanie.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

And that's the way we saw the world through the lens of Voiceover this week. Thank you so much for joining us today and listening to another conversation on the very important and popular topic of AI Voice. And if you have any thoughts that you'd like to share, you know where to find us. You can go on social media, comment on the post, share the podcast with your friends, and of course, if you have ideas for future episodes of Vox Talk, you can email me at stephanie (at) voices.com. I'll get your ideas that way. Or you could just tweet them. I'm Stephanie Ciccarelli from Voices. Vox Talk is produced, as always, by Geoff Bremner, and we will definitely be seeing you again next week.