Labor, Power, and Belonging: The Work of Voice in the Age of AI Reproduction
Shm Almeda, Robin Netzorg, Isabel Li, Ethan Tam, Skyla Ma, Bob Tianqi Wei
ACM FAccT 2025, PAPER UNDER REVIEW
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ABSTRACT
Developments in Speech AI have facilitated a rise in text-to-speech (TTS) generation and voice-cloning systems that progressively require less data to synthesize higher-quality speech. While voice actors are forced to grapple with the socioeconomic impacts of these technologies on the industries they work in, AI researchers and developers are removed from this context, where their work is playing an influential, and potentially harmful, role. Towards an informed perspective that centers directly impacted voices, we interview 15 voice  professionals on their perceptions and responses to speech-AI systems. We identify characteristics of informed consent and other rights uniquely relevant to the creative voice community, their existing norms and practices for negotiating those rights, and how the emergence of AI has disrupted this space. We hold technologists accountable for contributing to the ongoing exploitation of creative labor and identify opportunities to shift voice AI towards creative empowerment by designing for voice-artist control.