Voice Actors Speak Out on AI-Generated NSFW Skyrim Mods: 'It Should be Seen as the Violation It Is'

ign.com:

Skyrim's prevalent modding scene is notorious in the video game industry for extending the life of one of Bethesda's greatest games. But right now, the modding landscape is surrounded by controversy because of the rise of AI-generated voice clips in mods based on real Skyrim voice actors. If that doesn't raise enough ethical questions already, some of the mods feature pornographic AI voice performances, causing backlash and outcry in the voice actor community.

This issue was first reported on by GamesRadar, which called attention to Nexus Mods, a mod distributor that hosts a number of the pornographic Skyrim mods in question. When IGN reached out to Nexus Mods for comment on this story, a spokesperson simply linked to the site's current policy on AI content, which says in part, "AI-generated mod content is not against our rules, but may be removed if we receive a credible complaint from an affected creator/rights holder."

Twitter user @Robbie92_ pointed out the practice of AI voice cloning in the Skyrim modding scene late last month, tagging a number of impacted voice actors. Robbie said the actors' voice performances were mostly fed into an AI cloning tool called ElevenLabs, which generated the AI voices that were used in the explicit content.

With the rise of AI voice cloning, voice actors are being abused by the modding communities. As a member of the Skyrim modding scene, I am deeply concerned at the practice of using AI voice cloning to create and distribute non-consensual deepfake pornographic content. pic.twitter.com/ySUFqrtjH0

"I am a long-standing and deeply concerned member of the mod community for The Elder Scrolls series of games," Robbie wrote. "I believe that the creation and distribution of deepfake