Gollum Publisher Used ChatGPT To Apologize For Awful Launch, Say Sources

Earlier this month, Polish game devs, including several from CD Projekt Red, formed the Polish Gamedev Workers Union (PGWU). This came in the wake of further layoffs at the company in July, to the tune of 9% of its workforce. At the time, CEO Adam Kiciński explained the move as something to help make the teams more «agile and effective», but agile and effective doesn't pay the rent.

In what turned out to be another interesting day in the artificial intelligence universe, this emerging technology touched diverse areas from policy making to medtech. The UK's AI Summit might be in trouble. After German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, US President Joe Biden too may skip UK PM Rishi Sunak's AI meet. In other news, three music publishers have filed a lawsuit against Anthropic AI for using their copyrighted lyrics to train its Claude chatbot. This and more in today's AI roundup. Let us take a closer look.

When I first saw Slow Living with Princess on Steam, I thought the title sounded rather roughly translated. It also sounded an awful lot like one of the trope-y, light novel-derived fantasy shows that have dominated the anime industry's output for years now. Turns out I was right on the money: it's a farming sim based on the trope-y, light novel-derived anime Banished from the Hero's Party, I Decided to Live a Quiet Life in the Countryside. The kicker here is that, like its source material, it seems to be surprisingly good despite its silly name.

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum will live long in infamy as a terrible game, but as is often the case, it seems there was more to the story than simple mismanagement. An investigative report into the title's chaotic development from German outlet Game Two describes «an atmosphere of fear» at Daedalic Entertainment. It claims the studio enforced uncompensated overtime and attempted to pay staff below minimum wage, as well as creating a toxic workplace environment.

A new Bloomberg report reveals CD Projekt Red employed AI to recreate the voice of an actor that passed away after the game's release. Speaking to the outlet, CDPR said it reproduced the performance of Miłogost Reczek (who plays V's confidante and Ripper doc Viktor Vektor) for the recently released Phantom Liberty expansion. 

CD Projekt Red used AI to replace the voice actor Miłogost Reczek in Cyberpunk 2077 following his passing in 2021. 

As reported by Bloomberg, it's been revealed that CD Projekt used AI to replicate the voice of the late Miłogost Reczek, who voiced Night City's most reliable ripper doc, Viktor Vektor, in the base game's Polish localisation back in 2020.

CD Projekt Red might have stumbled a bit when they got Cyberpunk 2077 out the door and into the hands of the public. It was filled with bugs and poor optimization, which even prompted Sony to remove the game from their digital storefront for a period. However, the studio continued to work through the issues and delivered players with a series of patches to bring the game up to their standards. Now, the latest big update and expansion added a new area and content to take in. With that said, there was one obstacle developers had to figure out, and it was based on a deceased voice actor.

CD Projekt turned to AI technology to replicate a Cyberpunk 2077 Polish voice actor who passed away in 2021.

If you've ever spoken to the ripperdoc character Viktor Vektor in the Polish localisation of Cyberpunk 2077's Phantom Liberty expansion, you've been talking to a cyborg. Technically, of course, most characters in Cyberpunk 2077 are cyborgs, but in this case, I'm referring to one voice actor posing as another using voice-cloning technology, following the second actor's death.

Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt Red used AI to recreate the voice of a deceased Polish actor for the Phantom Libery expansion, a new report revealed.

Cyberpunk 2077 publisher and developer CD Projekt used AI to recreate the voice of a deceased actor.