“Everybody Who Creates Is Panicking”: FF7 Voice Actor Talks Unethical AI Use And Predicts A Challenging Future
Quinton is a Staff Writer from the United States. In his youth, Quinton was ridiculed for making video game ranking lists instead of paying attention in math class. In adulthood, people sometimes pay him for it. Life’s a trip.
Taking his first steps into the industry in 2020, Quinton has written for several digital publications, but his permanent literary home is right here at TheGamer.
Before striking up a conversation with Quinton, consider the risks: he’ll find a way to transform almost any topic into an analysis of either world history, Star Trek, or – at least this one’s relevant to his career – all his favorite role-playing games.
AI is rampant. Some still say generative AI is a dead end waiting to happen, and while I can’t say as I’d be disappointed if that were the truth, it’s been pushed to the point that it will never truly go away. To say nothing of the myriad productivity tasks that have been simplified, nor the serious place it has in the hearts and minds of many of today’s young up-and-comers.
Briana White has thoughts. How could she not? She’s a voice actor. The voice acting industry is among the most AI-threatened of them all. Passion, creativity, humanity – generative AI cannot, will not, ever possess these things. And people’s livelihoods are at stake. First and foremost a popular streamer, Ms. White also has a large community within which she can express these thoughts, and if you ask me, they’re well worth reading.
It s Here To Stay, Which Miiiiiight Be OK
As an important part of an interview with veteran journalist Naomi Kyle, Briana White gave voice to her perspective on AI, which included some measure of praise for its capabilities but thoroughly recognized what’s at stake in an environment which is largely regulation-free as we head into 2026. White, as a streamer, understandably classifies herself as “her own businessperson.” This leads to the following sentiment:
“Everybody who is a businessperson wants to do more, spending less money. And that is something that AI is touted to be able to do. But everyone who creates is panicking. Because what we create has value. […] What we’re literally creating is being stolen from us.”
White views AI as a “democratizer” with “beautiful abilities to teach people who need to be taught different ways.” She taps into ChatGPT, and quite enjoys it. But it’s an awfully lawless world out there right now. She reflects upon what generative AI that’s gobbling up and learning from actors’ performances might do to her career and many others’:
“…Someone like Tilly Norwood, a fake AI actor, named Tilly Norwood. And so, in theory, Tilly Norwood looks nothing like me, sounds nothing like me, but the way AI works, AI had to learn what humans look like and sound like based on maybe me. Maybe all of us, right And that’s weird, when I’ve spent a lifetime crafting me. And my entire career depends on me being me, and being able to express me, and honestly, sell me. So, I don’t like that.”
White has a depressingly realistic prediction for how long it’s going to take before these ethical quandaries are resolved, if indeed they ever can be. She makes a cool comparison, too, whilst giving a shoutout to an organization that I’d be remiss if I didn’t include in this article to help boost visibility:
“There’s an organization called NAVA Voices that’s doing a lot of advocacy work in this space, where, from my understanding of it; there’s a debate of whether AI is going to continue. I’m on the side of, ‘AI is happening. It’s out of the box.’ With actors, if an AI umodel uses my likeness, to learn what a human looks and sounds and talks like, and then uses a thousand to a hundred thousand other actors, and then my likeness is used to create an AI work? I should get credit, recognition, and pay. […] If AI is inevitable, fine, let’s do it right. But I think, right now, we’re in this weird lunar moon race, this cold war with AI, that we’re struggling to do it so fast, that we’re not thinking about those ramifications. It’s going to suck. It’s going to suck for 20 years.”
Host Naomi Kyle expresses hope that it won’t take two decades, but White is bullish, and… yeah. Yeah.
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I’m wishing Briana and every other voice actor around all the best during this difficult time. As a writer, I not only sympathize, but I empathize. It’s a different thing, but it’s still a thing, you know? It’s kind of coming for all creative types, and Briana White’s immense talent is not something that should get tossed to the curb, because something without that humanity just goes and injects it into its database. Oi.
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Some VA’s sound like they just read of from a script, no emotion, nothing. Hell, I’ve heard text-to-speech programs with more passion than some VA’s.
2026-01-02 18:25:04
This doesn’t devalue the fear that this top-level VA has. Enjoy your slop, but most people despise the immoral and selfish practices the LLM industry uses. The AI bubble WILL burst sooner than later.
2026-01-03 07:32:34
