Horizon’s Ashly Burch On How AI Can Be A “Great Thing” For Gaming With Some Caveats

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Ashly Burch, widely recognized as the voice behind Aloy in the Horizon video game series, recently discussed the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) in gaming following a leaked video featuring an AI-driven Aloy. In an interview with Eurogamer, Burch expressed her view that AI can be beneficial for developers in simplifying their tasks. However, she emphasizes the importance of exercising caution when integrating AI and human performers.

She expressed her belief that AI can be a fantastic aid for developers, stating something along the lines of, “Imagine if we leveraged AI to automate tasks such as cleaning up data between motion capture and game engine integration. That could truly be transformative!” In essence, she’s all for using AI to simplify development workflows and make jobs more manageable.

Burch stated that as a performer, she would need to fully understand how a developer would incorporate safeguards so that an AI-generated character based on one she played wouldn’t utter inappropriate or hurtful things. This discussion arises following Epic’s use of AI to create an AI-controlled Darth Vader, allowing players to interact with him and hear him speak various phrases using the voice of the late James Earl Jones.

Burch stated that AI is a relatively fresh technology, making it challenging to predict exactly how things will unfold. Yet, she emphasized that Horizon developer Guerrilla places a significant emphasis on performance in their games, and it’s hard for her to imagine a scenario where Guerrilla would simply swap out every human actor with robots.

Burch expressed concern that emerging actors might face challenges because smaller voiceover roles could potentially be taken over by advanced AI technology in the future.

She believes such work is crucial for individuals to a) meet their rent obligations and b) refine their skills and improve. She strongly values the chance for actors to keep performing.

A deleted video featured a demonstration of artificial intelligence (AI), showcasing a conversation between Sony Interactive Entertainment’s software engineering director Sharwin Raghoebardajal and an AI character resembling Aloy. In this video, Raghoebardajal explained that the AI version of Aloy was developed collaboratively with Guerrilla Games to exhibit the potential capabilities of the technology.

The AI technology demonstration did not incorporate any of Burch’s recorded voice or motion data, nor was it an ongoing project. However, this didn’t prevent Burch from expressing concern about the video that was shown.

To update you, the prolonged video game actors’ strike has finally concluded. A significant issue during the discussions centered around the employment of artificial intelligence.

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2025-06-23 19:11