The message came from someone I've never met, presumably picked out by the algorithm that's spotted "actor" scattered through my profile and assumes I'm up for some voice work. More worryingly, it had also noticed I speak Danish. What they wanted wasn't a quick line or two: from what they described, it would be a day in front of a microphone, reading scripts to train a model.
I haven't said 'yes'.
Partly because my Danish, while fluent, carries an accent that native speakers notice immediately, and I'm not confident that's what they're after. A version of me can talk myself into it: if I don't do it, somebody else will, so I might as well take the work while it's on offer, especially if voiceover is heading that way regardless.
Every recording handed over is one more reason a company doesn't need to hire the creative who'd otherwise have offered that skill. We have voiceover artists on our own team, and they've told us plainly that their bookings have dropped by as much as 80% over the past two years. That's a steeper drop than the industry-wide figure, where experts have projected a 30-50% reduction in voice-acting work over the next decade due to AI, a pressure real enough that SAG-AFTRA has spent the past two years negotiating specific AI protections into its contracts, with the MEAA running the equivalent fight here at home. Plenty of working voice actors don't think the craft is anywhere near being replaced outright, especially for character work and anything emotionally driven. This isn't an abstract industry statistic to us. These are creatives in Perth who already have to juggle multiple jobs just to keep a creative career alive. This will strip them of an income stream, and something will need to fill that gap or they'll go and get "proper", more stable jobs.
It's part of why we've made a standing commitment to use creatives for our voiceover work. I've sat in enough recording booths to know the client in the studio who tediously gives notes - "a bit faster", "emphasise the second word", "make it more formal" - will move to AI. It brings down cost, they can give notes ad infinitum to a tool that won't provide them with any pushback. On the flip side it won't present a new idea or a different approach. It might not be perfect but negotiating between human beings surely brings about the best result.
My reply to that LinkedIn message will be 'no'.
Jacob Fjord has been part of the real world for his entire life.
