Horizon Zero Dawn star Ashly Burch responds to Sony's controversial AI Aloy by pushing for actor protections: "You have to compensate us fairly, and you have to tell us how you're using this AI"

Horizon Forbidden West — (Image credit: Sony)

Earlier this week, footage of an AI-powered character prototype developed by Sony and modeled after Horizon Zero Dawn's Aloy leaked online. The game's community was immediately critical of the whole effort, and now Ashly Burch, the human actor behind Aloy's original performance, has published her own response.

"I saw the tech demo earlier this week," Burch says in an Instagram video. "Guerrilla reached out to me to let me know that the demo didn't reflect anything that was actively in development. They didn't use any of my performance for the demo, so none of my facial or voice data."

Burch is part of the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strikes against the video game industry, and a key component of those strikes is the demand for better protections against the unauthorized use of actors' performances through generative AI. "What we're fighting for is that you have to get our consent before you make an AI version of us in any form," Burch explains. "You have to compensate us fairly, and you have to tell us how you're using this AI double."

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The actor previously participated in the SAG-AFTRA video game strike of 2016-2017, which saw the union demanding residual payments and more transparency around the roles actors were being cast for. Notably, the strike left Burch unable to reprise her role as Chloe in Life Is Strange: Before the Storm until the game's DLC bonus episode.

The state of the negotiations in the current strike has had the union denouncing game industry proposals that are "still filled with alarming loopholes that will leave our members vulnerable to AI abuse." People like Resident Evil and Witcher 3 mocap director Steve Kniebihly remain confident that AI won’t be replacing real actors "anytime soon," but those concerns are a big part of why the strike is ongoing.

"I feel worried not because the technology exists, [and] not even because game companies want to use it, because of course they do – they always want to use technological advancements," Burch says. "I just imagine a video like this coming out that does have someone's performance attached to it – that does have someone's voice or face or movement – and the possibility that if we lose this fight, that person would have no recourse. They wouldn't have any protections, any way to fight back. That possibility, it makes me so sad."

As Sony trots out an AI-powered Aloy, Horizon Zero Dawn fans revel in the irony: "The entire game is a warning against this kind of nonsense."

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Dustin Bailey joined the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is currently based in Missouri. He's been covering games (with occasional dalliances in the worlds of anime and pro wrestling) since 2015, first as a freelancer, then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five years. His love for games was sparked somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and these days you can usually find him splitting his entertainment time between retro gaming, the latest big action-adventure title, or a long haul in American Truck Simulator.

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