AI: French dubbing comedians strike back

This article is also available in: French

The rise of artificial intelligence is sparking heated debates in the animation & VFX industries, but other areas are also affected, as seen last year with the writers’ strike in the USA.

The dubbing sector is also at risk, whether it’s the traditional dubbing of movies, series, or video games, or even audio description. This is even more likely in the case of audio description, as it only requires a neutral voice, making it easier to use AI-generated voices.

In France, the French Union of Performing Artists (SFA) and the professional association LESVOIX have decided to highlight this issue to the general public through a petition and the hashtag #TouchePasMaVF (“don’t touch my French dubbing”). Their goal is also to ask the governement to act. The text also criticizes a government that “remains deaf to [leurs] [their] requests, under the pretext of the urgency to develop French and European tools, in the face of American and Chinese giants.”

The petition is available on Change.org and has raised about 15,000 signatures so far.
Well-known artists support it, such as actress Brigitte Lecordier (she dubbed characters such as Son Goku, Son Gohan and many more).

Specifically, the petition demands more transparency, with a clear indication to the public when AI is used, and the ability for rights holders to choose whether AI companies can use their content to train AIs.
The petition also asks the governement not to give public funding to companies that don’t abide by these demands, and to create quotas: platforms, TV channels, radio stations, websites would be required to use a specific percentage of content that doesn’t rely on AI.

We had already addressed this topic in our interview with Véronique Augereau and Philippe Peythieu, the French voices of Marge and Homer Simpson.

Here is the complete text of the #TouchePasMaVF petition:

In Favor of Dubbing Created by Humans for Humans

Are you Francophone and curious about works and culture from around the world? Do you appreciate the quality of French versions of documentary and fiction series and films produced for television, platforms, or cinema? Do you enjoy playing video games, listening to podcasts, and audiobooks recorded in French?
Does audio description allow you to fully enjoy these works?
Did you know that the French versions of these works are interpreted by artists?

Experienced professionals, capable of bringing you the richness and complexity of the original interpretation, thanks to the nuances and emotions they know how to adapt and interpret in French, with all its specificities? These artists, along with talented authors and technicians, form an industry whose quality is recognized worldwide.

We are these professionals, and we are in danger.

We risk being among the first to be replaced, in the very short term, by generative artificial intelligence (GAI) tools, capable of translating, cloning, synthesizing texts, voices, interpretations, and emotions with astonishing similarity. We are on the front line because vocal data processing requires less computing power than image generation.

However, we know that technologies are being developed to generate entire sequences or films with “synthetic actors,” not for animated or science-fiction works, but to replace humans in all genres.

Computer-generated characters are more flexible, more manageable, and ultimately much cheaper! In all fields, many professions are threatened with extinction. Some studies indicate the risk of tens of millions of jobs disappearing worldwide in the medium term!

The substitution of humans by machines is a danger to culture.

The emotion, complexity, and beauty of the human experience conveyed by voice and language cannot be generated by artificial intelligence models. As powerful and sophisticated as they are, algorithms can only create simulacra and can, if not careful, reinforce discrimination biases present in the content they feed on. We protest against this frenzied race for profit.

What does this lead to? Generative artificial intelligence engines are currently powered by what we consider illegitimate harvesting of works we work on. In the long run, AI will be increasingly fed by content previously generated by other AIs, that is, by itself! How can we not see in this “inbred” mechanism a severe narrowing of the spectrum of intellectual works? An unprecedented and serious risk of homogenization, drying up, and cultural impoverishment?

It is the duty of public authorities to act

not to prevent innovation, but to regulate the development of generative AI in a way that protects artists, works, culture, and employment.

The government remains deaf to our requests, under the pretext of the urgency of developing French and European tools, in the face of American and Chinese giants. But these same countries, surprisingly, seem more ready to regulate than ours!

Transparency is an essential prerequisite.

It is necessary to precisely identify the training data of machines. It is essential that everyone, whether a rights holder of a protected work or a citizen attached to the integrity of their personal data, be able to explicitly authorize or refuse the use of their data and works over which they hold rights. The public must also be informed of the “synthetic” nature of the programs they consult, to know that they were created by AI. This information must be delivered in a clear, visible, and audible manner.


The protection of human employment guarantees the quality of future works.

Public funding in the cultural field must be conditioned on respect for these constraints and on the employment of human workers and artists. Similarly, it is necessary to impose quotas on broadcasters (radio, television, platforms, and websites) operating in French territory, of works and content created by human artistic intelligence.

By signing this petition, I want to continue appreciating audiovisual works from around the world in quality French versions, created by humans, for humans. Thus, I join my voice to those of performing artists to defend human creation against artificial manufacture.

SFA – French Union of Performing Artists
and the professional association LESVOIX