Erected on a mountain in Hollywood, will the debate around artificial intelligence give birth to a mouse? However promising it may be, this technology does not in any case worry the American dubber of Mickey, for whom an AI will never be able to capture the essence of the character. “Of course there is amazing technology that is developed with AI, and it is so impressive,” said Bret Iwan, the actor who lends his voice to the Disney mascot. “But I think nothing can replace the heart of a character and, more importantly, the heart of storytelling.”
The character and the narration are “specific to a performer, a writer, an animator, an artist, a creator”, he insists, during an interview before the centenary of Disney studios, which will take place on 16 october. If the company is busy celebrating its century of existence, Hollywood has less heart to party this summer. The screenwriters have been on strike for more than two months, and the actors are threatening to join the social movement.
In addition to inevitable salary issues, this maelstrom is notably fueled by the fears of the American film industry towards artificial intelligence. Because if it is only in its infancy, this new tool has the potential to produce scripts, clone voices or imitate actors. But for Bret Iwan, the originality of creators remains essential for “storytelling”, the art of telling stories. “I dare to hope that it is this aspect that will continue and allow real people to do this work for a while!” Says the forty-year-old, who is only the fourth official interpreter of the character.
The falsetto voice of the famous big-eared mouse was first provided by Walt Disney himself, from the first appearance of the character in the cartoon Steamboat Willie in 1928. Then two other actors took over this high tone for more three decades before Bret Iwan took up the torch. “I hope I can keep doing it as long as my vocal cords hold up,” says the interpreter, who notably voices Mickey in the “Kingdom Hearts” video game series.
But in the field of animation, the kind of cinema on which Disney has built its reputation, technology has already played a significant role for many years. Computer-generated images have long since taken over from traditional hand-drawing, both at Disney and its competitors. If humans continue to create the films, the recent use of AI to design the credits of the Secret Invasion series, broadcast on the Disney streaming platform, has caused controversy in Hollywood.
But for Eric Goldberg, the animator who designed the legendary genie of Aladdin in the 1992 cartoon, this new technology poses more of a threat to the newer sectors of his industry. “I think AI is less likely to affect hand-drawn animation than computer animation because AI is about reproducing realism,” he sums up. “The characters I draw, the genie’s head can turn into a toaster! Which is not possible with an AI character!”
“Hand drawing therefore gives us a small advantage from this point of view,” he adds. At 68, this passionate craftsman has just completed the training of five new apprentice designers at Disney. He remains convinced that there will always be “a core of us who want to see hand-drawn animations”. “I don’t think AI will be a problem for this aspect of the medium, because we have to use our imaginations so much to represent hand-drawn characters, because of the flexibility of what they can do” , he explains. Traditional cartooning will endure, he concludes, “as long as there are people who still want to do it!”
