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Darth Vader, using a dead man’s AI voice, is cussing and using slurs in Fortnite—and it scares the hell out of me
I've always thought of Fortnite as such an impressive achievement, especially when it comes to live events, brand collabs, and delivering on the "metaverse" idea. But the game's latest chapter is a mess. In case you missed it, Darth Vader has joined Fortnite's Star Wars-themed season today as a boss on the battle royale map. He can be recruited to join your team, which is cool—but then things get really, really weird and kind of uncomfortable. Screenshot by Destructoid This version of Darth Vader uses "conversational AI" and will talk to the player, responding to prompts via voice chat, and it's all using the voice likeness of the legendary James Earl Jones, with permission from his family. "James Earl felt that the voice of Darth Vader was inseparable from the story of Star Wars, and he always wanted fans of all ages to continue to experience it," Jones' family said in a statement. "We hope that this collaboration with Fortnite will allow both longtime fans of Darth Vader and newer generations to share in the enjoyment of this iconic character." I respect the family's wishes and, while part of me can see how cool it is to have him live on in this form, it's also disturbing and a bit dystopian. The actor is no longer with us, but his voice is used to discuss Fortnite happenings ("the Sith Lord has opinions," says Epic Games). And of course, it didn't take players long to abuse and try to break the new toy by trying to get it to say inappropriate things. One video that quickly made the rounds not long after AI Vader went live showed him cursing atstreamer Loserfruit. Fortnite said it "pushed a hotfix immediately and this shouldn't happen again," but rest assured, players will spend the following days trying their best to make the Sith Lord say all kinds of things. Another video making the rounds this afternoon shows a group of young-sounding gamers squeaking with glee as they somehow get Vader to say the F slur, which was likely the goal all along. And this is why we can't have "nice things," gamers. Another gamer asked Darth Vader what his thoughts were on Pride Month, and Vader responded by calling it a "fleeting celebration of identity," and told the player to "continue to cling to your delusions." As is usually the case, talking to Darth Vader sounds cool, but in practice, it's always going to be taken advantage of and made more uncomfortable than anything. And I can't shake the uneasy feeling of having a deceased actor talk to me, as the advancements in AI (like Google's Gemini 2.0 Flash model and ElevenLabs’ Flash v2.5 model, which power AI Vader) are blurring the lines more and more each day. https://twitter.com/ImCordial/status/1923354018375491805 There are safeguards, thankfully. Epic says that "players under 13 or their country’s age of digital consent, whichever is higher, will need permission to talk with Darth Vader," and that "player voice audio and transcriptions" are not stored. It also says it's not using any player interactions to train AI models, which is nice. Look, I get it. At its core, the idea of having a child playing Fortnite be able to talk to Darth Vader and experience something that exciting and surreal is cool. But it's never going to end at just that. And although AI is powerful and getting stronger each day, it's still unstable and will lead to issues like the ones above. I wonder what the offices of Disney and Lucasfilm are like today as they see the clips of the iconic character and late actor dropping F-bombs online. But without even getting into the legal or ethical repercussions, the whole thing just does not sit right with me, and it feels like a genuinely terrible idea. The post Darth Vader, using a dead man’s AI voice, is cussing and using slurs in Fortnite—and it scares the hell out of me appeared first on Destructoid.
I've always thought of Fortnite as such an impressive achievement, especially when it comes to live events, brand collabs, and delivering on the "metaverse" idea. But the game's latest chapter is a mess.
In case you missed it, Darth Vader has joined Fortnite's Star Wars-themed season today as a boss on the battle royale map. He can be recruited to join your team, which is cool—but then things get really, really weird and kind of uncomfortable.
This version of Darth Vader uses "conversational AI" and will talk to the player, responding to prompts via voice chat, and it's all using the voice likeness of the legendary James Earl Jones, with permission from his family.
"James Earl felt that the voice of Darth Vader was inseparable from the story of Star Wars, and he always wanted fans of all ages to continue to experience it," Jones' family said in a statement. "We hope that this collaboration with Fortnite will allow both longtime fans of Darth Vader and newer generations to share in the enjoyment of this iconic character."
I respect the family's wishes and, while part of me can see how cool it is to have him live on in this form, it's also disturbing and a bit dystopian. The actor is no longer with us, but his voice is used to discuss Fortnite happenings ("the Sith Lord has opinions," says Epic Games).
And of course, it didn't take players long to abuse and try to break the new toy by trying to get it to say inappropriate things. One video that quickly made the rounds not long after AI Vader went live showed him cursing atstreamer Loserfruit. Fortnite said it "pushed a hotfix immediately and this shouldn't happen again," but rest assured, players will spend the following days trying their best to make the Sith Lord say all kinds of things.
Another video making the rounds this afternoon shows a group of young-sounding gamers squeaking with glee as they somehow get Vader to say the F slur, which was likely the goal all along. And this is why we can't have "nice things," gamers.
Another gamer asked Darth Vader what his thoughts were on Pride Month, and Vader responded by calling it a "fleeting celebration of identity," and told the player to "continue to cling to your delusions."
As is usually the case, talking to Darth Vader sounds cool, but in practice, it's always going to be taken advantage of and made more uncomfortable than anything. And I can't shake the uneasy feeling of having a deceased actor talk to me, as the advancements in AI (like Google's Gemini 2.0 Flash model and ElevenLabs’ Flash v2.5 model, which power AI Vader) are blurring the lines more and more each day.
There are safeguards, thankfully. Epic says that "players under 13 or their country’s age of digital consent, whichever is higher, will need permission to talk with Darth Vader," and that "player voice audio and transcriptions" are not stored. It also says it's not using any player interactions to train AI models, which is nice.
Look, I get it. At its core, the idea of having a child playing Fortnite be able to talk to Darth Vader and experience something that exciting and surreal is cool. But it's never going to end at just that. And although AI is powerful and getting stronger each day, it's still unstable and will lead to issues like the ones above.
I wonder what the offices of Disney and Lucasfilm are like today as they see the clips of the iconic character and late actor dropping F-bombs online. But without even getting into the legal or ethical repercussions, the whole thing just does not sit right with me, and it feels like a genuinely terrible idea.
The post Darth Vader, using a dead man’s AI voice, is cussing and using slurs in Fortnite—and it scares the hell out of me appeared first on Destructoid.
