Fortnite's AI-generated Darth Vader voice sparks SAG-AFTRA legal complaint

What just happened? The use of AI to recreate the voice of the late James Earl Jones for Darth Vader in Fortnite has run into more controversy. Soon after players managed to make the character swear and say racially charged slurs, actors union SAG-AFTRA has filed an unfair labor practice charge against Llama Productions, a subsidiary of Epic Games.

In 2022, Jones, who passed away in 2024, gave his blessing to the artificial recreations of the Darth Vader voice, a role he had occupied for 45 years. The company creating the convincing imitations, Respeecher, says it trains text-to-speech models using recordings of actors who can no longer play parts.

The AI voice technology was used to bring Vader back to Fortnite last week. Not only are players able to recruit the Sith Lord, but they can also speak directly with him using Fortnite's in-game audio chat functionality.

Fortnite launched ...