Everyone is fighting for the sanctity of creating art, until Darth Vader turns around and shouts “skibidi toilet” before bagging a Victory Royale with Hatsune Miku. Last week saw Epic Games add an AI version of the iconic Star Wars villain to Fortnite, which responds in real time to any and all (or at least, most) vocal queries thrown at him.

Over the weekend, I saw people try to explain to Darth Vader what furries are, teach him how to speak in generic brainrot phrases, and obviously get him to swear and say slurs, despite the restrictions placed on the AI model by Epic Games. He’s not allowed to express romantic or sexual language, engage in hate speech, quote too much Star Wars, and all the usual stuff we’ve seen users get around time and time again with chatbots like this.

It’s been a fun disaster, but also speaks to a worrying future for AI, voice acting, and the use of deceased figures that have been written on the wall for a long time now. We have opened Pandora’s Box and there is no going back.

I’m well aware of the fact that I exist within an echochamber. I cover video games, animation, film, television, and the wider landscape of internet culture for a living. This means I notice a lot of different trends, habits, and big events that would pass normal people by. One such trend is the continued proliferation of Generative AI in every single creative medium. What began as a fun piece of experimental technology that wasn’t powerful enough to play a serious role in the media we consume has become increasingly advanced. It now risks taking jobs from hardworking creatives; the same ones AI has pilfered from in order to exist in the first place.

We’re already seeing AI tools used to produce cosmetic items and posters in Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and publishers like Activision and Ubisoft have made it clear they have no qualms with using such methods to streamline development processes or even replace human beings entirely.

Corporations, no matter how much we like to be cheerleaders for specific platform holders, are always going to take shortcuts that lessen costs and increase profits. That is how things work, and until the revolution comes and capitalism is upheaved, nothing will change. The same goes for Epic Games, and as much as I love Fortnite, a metaverse at the forefront of gaming is likely going to spearhead how AI is perceived by mainstream audiences. And, in the case of Darth Vader, it’s a big problem.

We should be rioting in the streets about how, instead of employing a voice actor to bring this fascinating new feature to life, we are utilising the voice of a dead man to spout nonsense as his most iconic character.

The family of James Earl Jones gave their blessing for his voice to be used by Epic Games for this chatbot, and believe it is a worthwhile homage to both his legacy as an actor and the character he brought to life. I wonder if they would still feel that way if they knew it would be used so that the Sith Lord could be spouting slurs in Tilted Towers.

I feel the same way about this as I did with Ian Holm making a return in Alien: Romulus. A film I wanted to love with all my heart was forever tainted, thanks to the revival of an actor whose presence meant nothing more than a cheap slice of fanservice. It’s ghoulish, proving that our obsession with recreating relics of a bygone era kept alive by nostalgia is considered more important than creating new stories, characters, and places worth caring about. Darth Vader in Fortnite comes from the same misguided thinking, putting us on the path towards a terrible future that, now we’ve engaged so positively with it, is going to unfold.

Voice actors who are part of the SAG-AFTRA union are currently fighting for a better deal that will incorporate fairer pay, improved working conditions, and AI protections that aim to shield them from the very practices that Fortnite is currently abusing. What’s going to stop Epic Games from replacing future original characters with non-union talent or recreating a previously human talent using some twisted internal voice bank? Darth Vader is merely the tipping point of how chatbots like this could one day be used to bring entire ranges of NPC supporting characters to life that spout random phrases instead of curated dialogue brought to life with a real, human touch. I don’t want to live in that world, but I won’t have a choice.

The average consumer who exists as part of a million-strong mainstream audience is likely to see a cool new generative AI trend of a chatbot in Fortnite and view it at face value as an entertaining tool to be played with and discarded. They’ll never think about the wider ethical ramifications of the media they consume until it’s too late, and by then it will become normalised as corporations with more power and money than sense call the shots as those responsible for creating art are thrown aside. Without them caring, we fight a losing battle.