Fortnite's Darth Vader Controversy, Explained
David Prowse as Darth Vader in a scene from the film 'Star Wars', 1977. (Photo by 20th Century-Fox/Getty Images)
Darth Vader has been added to Fortnite, and the iconic Star Wars villain has sparked controversy, debate and a legal challenge from SAG-AFTRA.
This version of Vader is an NPC companion who can fight alongside players and speak to them in real time, thanks to generative AI.
At best, Darth Vader parrots vaguely Vaderish lines (boasting of the power of the Force, and so forth), but of course, Fortnite players quickly managed to make Vader break character and say something offensive.
Hallucinations and the slippery, unpredictable nature of language makes safeguarding a generative AI model a fiendishly difficult task, and some players managed to break the guardrails.
Almost immediately, Vader was saying slurs and swearing at players.
This was a bad look, given Fortnite's young user base, but there were also plenty of wholesome, genuinely funny moments that emerged from the AI-generated chaos.
Once the novelty wore off and the capacity to offend was patched out by Epic Games, players started to question the ethics of the Fortnite experiment.
The use of generative AI to mimic the distinctive vocal delivery of James Earl Jones sparked backlash from some commentators who felt that the stunt was disrespectful.
However, the AI-generated voice was created in collaboration with Jones' estate, and Jones himself assisted in training an AI voice clone before his death, to ensure that Vader would live on, in some form.
Whether or not Jones would have wanted his character to feature in Fortnite is debatable, but strangely enough, Disney's Star Wars has inspired similar debates in the past.
Disney has been dabbling in digital necromancy ever since Rogue One, which featured a recreation of Peter Cushing's likeness as Grand Moff Tarkin.
Digital recreations of a young Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill (as Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker) have also appeared in the franchise. At the time, Disney's decision proved controversial, as the characters could have simply been portrayed by young actors.
Currently, replicating the likeness of a performer via generative AI is difficult and costly. However, generative AI has proved a potent threat to the livelihood of voice actors, with the technology able to replicate voices quickly and cheaply, even if the results sound rather flat.
Epic Games used a combination of Google's Gemini and ElevenLabs' Flash v2.5 to generate Vader's responses. Fortnite's Darth Vader, when he's not swearing at players, isn't particularly interesting to talk to—he's a watered down recreation of an iconic character.
The Screen Actors Guild - American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) took note of Fortnite's AI-generated Darth Vader and responded with a press release:
'Fortnite's signatory company, Llama Productions, chose to replace the work of human performers with A.I. technology. Unfortunately, they did so without providing any notice of their intent to do this and without bargaining with us over appropriate terms. As such, we have filed an unfair labor practice charge with the NLRB against Llama Productions.'
It should be noted that SAG-AFTRA is not questioning the right of performers to license AI clones of themselves, but highlighting that Fortnite's Darth Vader could have been played by a voice actor.
"However, we must protect our right to bargain terms and conditions around uses of voice that replace the work of our members," the union wrote, "including those who previously did the work of matching Darth Vader's iconic rhythm and tone in video games."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Vogue
40 minutes ago
- Vogue
19 Short Curly Hairstyles to Celebrate Your Natural Texture
Contrary to popular belief, your options when you have short curly hair aren't limited. In fact, working with a shorter length provides you with the opportunity to flex those creative styling muscles. 'Short curly hair is fun, which makes it one of my favorites to style,' says celebrity hairstylist Lacy Redway. 'You can really mold things in place and create sharp lines with products. You can play with shapes that add volume or are sleek to contour the head.' The key to any hairstyle for your short natural curls is hydration. 'Short curly hair may be low in length, but it's high-maintenance when it comes to moisture,' explains Redway. 'You want to cleanse gently, condition deeply, and style with purpose.' Michelle O'Connor, a global artistic director at Matrix, agrees and recommends a layered shampoo and treatment approach. Opt for a sulfate-free shampoo and a nourishing conditioner weekly, rotating in a deep treatment mask every seven to 10 days. A leave-in treatment can also help and O'connor says you'll want to find one that has bond-building benefits and can reinforce your curls. And go lightweight with the styling creams or foams so you won't cause buildup followed up by a serum or oil to lock in moisture. With that, the experts break down the 19 best ways to style short curly hair. Check out their favorites below. Pin Curls
Gizmodo
41 minutes ago
- Gizmodo
Lego's First ‘How to Train Your Dragon' Set Is an Adorable Little Toothless
With the live-action How to Train Your Dragon on the way, Lego is finally heading to Berk for a new officially-licensed set. The thing that makes sense? It is, of course, your very own buildable Toothless. The thing that doesn't? It's a chibi-fied, almost animated spin on the dragon, despite being inspired by the realistic-rendering of Toothless in the new remake. This morning Lego announced its first ever How to Train Your Dragon set in the form of the Lego Icons Toothless. Clocking in at 784 pieces, the diminutive dragon is rendered in a chibi-fied style, a mostly static (save for the ability to tilt and rotate his oversized head, open his jaw, and flap his wings) rendering of Toothless in suitably cutesy form. He also comes with accessories you can add, like a fish to feed him and a small effects piece to replicate him breathing a little poof of plasma. Nothing too dangerous. Lego Icons How to Train Your Dragon Toothless But the cutesy aesthetic (especially for a set that, as part of the Icons line, is aimed more at adult collectors) is an intriguing choice for a set that is specifically inspired by the upcoming live-action remake of the film. It is meant to represent Toothless in his adult form, judging by the fact that he has his prosthetic tail fin, and of course the box includes imagery of the more-realistically-rendered version of the CG dragon from the new film, rather than his prior animated form. It's an stylized take on a realistic take of a stylized take! All that, however, doesn't stop him from being down right adorable though. The Lego Icons Toothless is available to pre-order now for $70, and will release on July 1.
Associated Press
41 minutes ago
- Associated Press
OKC's Mark Daigneault knows what it takes to win championships. His wife has won a ton of them
Oklahoma City's Mark Daigneault has the best record of any coach in the NBA this season. And he has the second-best record of any coach in his house. Daigneault is a coach, and a coach's husband, too. His wife is Oklahoma assistant women's gymnastics coach Ashley Kerr. She and the Sooners went 33-2 this season and won another national championship, their third in the last four years. So, as Daigneault chases his first NBA title — he and the top-seeded Thunder open the NBA Finals at home against the Indiana Pacers on Thursday night — his wife has now been part of seven national championships over her career on the staffs at Florida and Oklahoma, the most recent of those coming just a few weeks ago as Oklahoma City was starting this playoff run. Daigneault isn't shy about touting the strengths of his wife's resume, either. 'Among my wife and I, she is — by far — the more accomplished, more impressive, better coach,' Daigneault said. 'She's the real deal.' It is a relationship born from ties to Florida. Daigneault — a Massachusetts native — was a student manager under Jim Calhoun at Connecticut, part of the team that won an NCAA championship there in 2004, then started his assistant-coaching career at Holy Cross for three years before moving on to Billy Donovan's staff at Florida. Kerr, a Florida native, was a gymnast whose four years as a student-athlete for the Gators was ending around that time. She was brilliant, a four-time All-SEC academic selection, and Florida found a way to keep her with the program once her eligibility was exhausted. Kerr became a volunteer student manager for the 2011 season, then got promoted to team manager and eventually assistant to the head coach. Along the way, she and Daigneault started dating and over time things got serious. And then, the relationship reached a key moment. Daigneault had an offer from Oklahoma City to coach the Blue, its G League franchise. He was ready to leave. Kerr had a job in Gainesville. She was not ready to leave. 'The OKC job was a no-brainer for him,' Kerr told The Oklahoman newspaper for a story in 2021. 'I was like, 'You have to do it. You have to.'' It became a long-distance relationship for a few years, until Kerr decided it was time to leave Florida and try to embark on a coaching career in Oklahoma. The Sooners didn't have a job for her initially, before a volunteer position opened up right around the time she was going to make the move anyway. Kerr kept that volunteer job — coaching balance beam and helping Oklahoma win three NCAA titles — for about six years, before the NCAA changed rules to allow volunteer assistant positions to be converted into full-time, paid positions. Over that time, Daigneault was promoted from the Blue to the Thunder, they got married and started a family. 'She has a way of connecting with our student-athletes on a personal level and is an exceptional leader,' Oklahoma coach K.J. Kindler said when Kerr was finally promoted. Daigneault likes to say the real coaches in his house right now are the couple's two children, ages 3 and 2, who basically run the show. 'We are not in charge,' Daigneault said. 'We are just surviving.' The younger of the two kids was born April 15, 2023 — a day after the Thunder were eliminated from that season's play-in tournament, and the day the Sooners were competing in the NCAA gymnastics final at Fort Worth, Texas. It was also more than a week ahead of Kerr's due date. Except she went into labor, in Fort Worth, around 5 a.m. Daigneault had been back in Oklahoma City for about an hour after the middle-of-the-night flight home from Minnesota, where the Thunder lost that play-in game. He hopped in the car and made it to Fort Worth just in time for the birth that morning, and later that night the Sooners won a national title. 'Our team really rallied around her,' Kindler said. There are obvious benefits to a coach being married to another coach, as Daigneault and Kerr have found. There is an understanding of the jobs, an understanding of long hours and late nights and travel and unpredictability. But when they're home, they try to be home, not still at work. 'There's certainly a lot more things that define our relationship together, starting with our kids now,' Daigneault said. 'That's occupying the majority of our bandwidth, but even beyond that, we've always tried to compartmentalize it in a way that's pretty healthy because we both like to be home when we're home and not just using the house as an extension of our jobs.' Daigneault got his master's degree from Florida, though originally intended to get it immediately after graduating from Connecticut. If he had stuck to that schedule, though, he almost certainly wouldn't have coached at Holy Cross. He might not have made it to Florida. He might not have met Kerr. He might not be married to someone with seven national championships and counting. He might not have come to Oklahoma City. He might have missed out on these NBA Finals. Right place, right time. 'If you replayed my life 10 million times — I used to say a million, but now that we're playing in the NBA Finals, I'll say 10 million — this would only happen once,' Daigneault said. 'And so, there's never a minute that I'm not grateful.' ___ AP NBA:
