The Simpsons actor admits he’s ‘worried’ about his future: ‘This is my job’
The Simpsons actor admits he’s ‘worried’ about his future: ‘This is my job’
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‘This is what I love to do, and I don’t want to have to stop doing it,’ said Hank Azaria. The Simpsons voice actor, Hank Azaria has admitted that he’s worried about his future in the industry amid the rise of artificial intelligence. Azaria, 60, has worked on the long-running animated sitcom since 1989 and voiced numerous characters including Moe Szyslak, Chief Wiggum, Superintendent Chalmers, Comic Book Guy, Snake and Professor Frink.
![[Hank Azaria]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2023/06/06/22/GettyImages-148149165020purple.jpg)
Azaria wrote: “The AI model may not know what’s funny or what timing is, but it could do a million different takes. And it could be told to do them as I would - and it might be pretty convincing.”. “So, if I’m being honest, I am a little worried,” Azaria added. “This is my job. This is what I love to do, and I don’t want to have to stop doing it. The conventional wisdom in Hollywood is that the technology for making faces seem fully human is five years away. I fear that the voice equivalent is also coming.”.
Viewers were left somewhat startled as the long-running animated series’s 36th season, which has bizarrely predicted real-life events for more than three decades, was launched with an episode branded its “series finale”. However, despite some confusion among viewers, the episode was actually a parody of what makes an effective finale and imagined what the perfect ending of The Simpsons would look like – as written by AI.
Throughout the episode, there were animated recreations of final shots of shows including The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones and Succession. “The discussion that it would be so hard to do a last episode is what led to the fake series finale,” said Selman. “That it’s sort of an impossible thing.”. “The show isn’t meant to end,” he continued. “To do a sappy crappo series finale, like most other shows do, would be so lame. So we just did one that was like over the top.”.
