[Exclusive] Interview With Gamer Goku: Sean Schemmel Controversy & Conversations About AI

A few days ago, I had the opportunity to interview Gamer Goku and ask him about exactly what went down during the situation with Sean Schemmel over social media regarding the misunderstanding created around him allegedly using AI to make content.

However, besides this, I wanted to ask Gamer Goku his views about AI and what kind of impact he thinks it will have in the anime industry if ever a day comes when it is used as a tool. So, without any further delay, let’s get to it.

Note: The following interview has been shortened and edited for grammar and accuracy.

Before we begin, please, in a few words, could you let our audience know who you are and what you do as a content creator?

Gamer Goku: I do the voice of Goku! I do it as a voice impression by playing video games with, ya know, my friends like Vegeta and, uh, Krillin, stuff like that, and I turn that into content, and that’s kinda what I do.

I just have Goku in the corner as a little sprite (a two-dimensional image or animation that represents a character, object, or effect in a video game) holding the controller, and we just play video games, and it is pretty simple as that, and that takes up the majority of the videos.

I try and post as frequently as I can, as at the end of the day it’s just a bit of fun. A few years ago, I started blowing up, and before I knew it, this essentially became my day job! To this day, it still is just a lot of fun for me, and that’s pretty much what I do.

Are you involved with anything you’d like them to know apart from it?

Gamer Goku: I don’t just play Goku. As a voice actor, I am self-taught and have been doing it for over a decade. What I tend to do in the present is be involved in other voice-acting projects, four of which are video games, which is kinda cool! (laughs).

I have a wide range of voices, everything from certain Dragonball characters to cartoon characters, movie characters, etc. The biggest project that I’ve been in was actually a movie that came out in theatres in America. It was an indie movie called “A Fairy Tale After All”, which can be found online. (Available on Amazon Prime!)

It was insane! The director, Eric Peter Carlson, contacted me through Fiverr, which is where I have all my voice demos; people come and contact/ reach out to me for any voice-over works, and he wanted me to voice a couple of characters, so I went through the process of coming up with voices for them.

So, essentially, I got to voice the puppets in the movie, and it was a lot of fun. While it didn’t garner much success, as it was an indie project, nevertheless, it was big fun, and I continue to put out voice-over works on the side as it is a big passion project for me, and I really enjoy it.

Please tell us how you found out about Sean’s comments and what caused them to spiral out of control and go viral.

Gamer Goku: This guy on Twitter (I call it Twitter, not “X,” lol) his name is “Vegitoflex.” He posted a tweet that went viral and, shot up to a million views, and tagged me. The post was a screenshot of Sean Schemmel’s [voice of Goku] comment on my Instagram post, which was me taking one of the opening cinematic dialogue things of Goku in Ultra Instinct and making an impression with a reverb effect and, am I allowed to swear on this…? (Yeah, sure, go ahead) Okay, basically, as Goku, I took his original line: “Is that what you think? Mess around with it and find out.” and said, ” F$%£ around and find out!”

I guess Sean saw the video and thought it was his own voice being manipulated with AI and left an immediate comment without doing any research, which was not really the smartest thing to do, and all it would’ve taken was a quick click on my name, look at any of my other shorts and listen for just like, 30 seconds and he would’ve realised “oh wait a minute” and tell this was a voice impression. It can fool a lot of people [AI], but if you are a trained voice actor, you can kinda hear the difference if you closely listen.

–True; however, I wouldn’t entirely blame him. His reaction might stem from the AI’s impressive nature, making it hard to differentiate between real and voice-acted content. Five years ago, this may not have raised any concerns, but with rapid technological advancements, it’s understandable that he’d question the creator.

Gamer Goku: I can understand that immediate reaction, but as a professional in the industry, you’d quickly want to do some research. Maybe he didn’t have time; we really don’t know what was going on at his end.

I suppose I can’t fully blame him; people have done worse, but yeah, it was a total surprise. So when I saw the screenshot and realised this was my video and my post on Instagram, I went to it and found a comment; sure enough, but it was from nine weeks ago! I didn’t see it for nine whole weeks, and it took someone else screenshotting it and posting it on Twitter, fresh for me to see it.

What was your reaction to Sean’s comments about you not being a “Dragonball fan” when it came to calling you out as an AI Content Creator?

Gamer Goku: It was a definite kick in the teeth when I read it initially, that’s for sure. It’s not every day you wake up where someone you idolized at one point in your life and based your voice on this character, messages you directly and then calls you “not a fan.” of the show you have been watching since you were five years old.

For reference, I am now thirty-one [and will be 32 in a week] and have been watching the show for nearly twenty-seven years. However, it didn’t take me long to snap out of it, mainly because I already knew the kind of person Sean was through seeing YouTube videos and through some research, and he has reacted to other Goku vas not attending conventions and him not being happy.

Was a meeting with Sean or his team arranged, and what topics were discussed?

Gamer Goku: It was a DM, a message on my Instagram and through that, basically, he said exactly the same thing, but he sorta worded it in a way where he called me “not a Dragonball fan.” So, I took a few minutes and responded honestly. There was also a comment from Freeza’s voice, “Daman Mills,” which took me by surprise.

I stated that it wasn’t AI, but an impression of him, a voice impression of Goku, and that’s what it was, and I did it for fun and was not harming anybody and was not trying to steal his job essentially, which is what I said to him. And it’s all just for fun, and I make sure to tell my audience when they do think I am “Sean.” or if they think I am using AI, I correct them and say that I am a voice impressionist and again will say it’s not harming anyone.

Several days went by, and he never really answered. I thought of making a video about it just because it was going around a lot on Twitter, and everyone was talking about it. I just wanted to announce to people, “Hey, this is a thing that happened” I wanted to talk about this and had certain feelings about it while keeping it as professional as I could.

This intern left many people angry and attacked Sean on a post he made on Twitter where he was trying to raise money for another voice actor, Mike McFarlin, where he was trying to raise funds for his post-surgery needs and in that post, people were calling Sean out. I went on to make a tweet addressing people that it wasn’t cool and that you can’t attack Sean like this over a video helping raise money for someone’s operation; that’s really messed up! What are you doing? Stop!

Since then, it has died down. The video almost halted in views, and it’s still getting a few, but people have slowed down; I think everyone’s starting to get past it a bit, but there’ll still be a few who’d still talk about it here and there, but I certainly am massively over it, and it doesn’t affect me anymore by thinking about it. I’m just kinda enjoying life and moving on, essentially.

Given how the conversation concluded and a resolution was reached, do you feel that there was something else you could have told or discussed? If so, please feel free to do so.

Gamer Goku: Well, had he responded and depending on what he said, I would have loved to see if he’d be open to discussing it some more. I’d like to get his opinion on how I sound as Goku. I may not have liked his initial response, which was very unprofessional. But if he genuinely apologised, I’d forgive him for it. However, as stated previously, I have moved on since.

The first half of this interview concludes. I would like to express my gratitude to Gamer Goku for staying with us thus far. Still, we will move on to our second topic: the views around the rise of AI, how it affects the creative community, and whether there is a way that AI and Human Art can co-exist rather than completely overtake each other.

Gamer Goku: I personally think it is possible the way it currently is, but I can see it becoming a problem rather than something we can work with. What I will say before getting into the negatives is positive-wise, there are some good things AI can do.

As a content creator, I sometimes struggle with ideas for titles for my videos. For example, Goku and Vegeta are playing Fortnite; now, something particularly happens in the video, and I might not know exactly what to call it. Plus, I have got several videos of them playing Fortnite. So sometimes, when I am really struggling with ideas, what I will do is, I will use Microsoft Copilot. Are you familiar with that?

– Yes

Gamer Goku: So I tell Copilot what my video is about and explain that I need a nice, eye-catching title that makes people want to click on the video. And sometimes, it comes up with interesting ideas, and I will take bits and pieces from them and make my own title from it.

I then examine them, and usually, more often than not, none of them do it for me and then proceed to give it other sub prompts such as making it shorter or adding something exciting to the title, and this goes around for a while before I stitch in the prompts to make unique of my own or get inspired by what I have been given and come up with a new title idea instead.

That’s when something like Chat GPT comes into play. He asked the AI to fix the code for him, and it did! And it will work in the game. It’s definitely very handy if you are still learning code or struggling to figure out how to fix a piece of code you wrote yourself. However, there are uses of AI that I strongly disagree with.

But there are things that I stated earlier that I strongly disagree with, such as using AI for voice-acting where you are sampling someone’s voice, such as Sean Schemmel’s, running it through an AI program and then it learns and picks up his sort of nuances, tone and people just make videos to make money off it.

In turn, he is stealing this man’s voice, which he has worked his entire life as a creator and understand that when you get that stuff with people doing that all the time and hence why I hate it, AI is not good.

The same goes for art, is what I mean, but I can get on that later. Idk. Would you like to ask me about that?

– Yes, please, as the entire point was to ask how it affects the creatives, so yeah, you can add art into your current conversation.

Gamer Goku: So, as I say, art is no different. From my understanding, I never knew this because, at one point, I was guilty of using some AI for art, specifically art generation, for some of my earlier thumbnails.

I think I did three different videos which had AI in the thumbnail I have since gone back and changed them as my viewpoints had as well. But the way AI artworks, as far I went, AI art cant create something new; it doesn’t have the creativity behind it yet on an intellectual level because if it were, it would be sentient, but what it does is it takes already existing from already existing art created by real people and essentially its art theft.

It’s taking inspiration and designs; I wouldn’t even call it inspiration because that wouldn’t imply it is inspired, which it can’t be as it is a computer. So right now, it is not at that level where it can do that, but it will take poses and shapes and all sorts of things like colour, design and art style and take that from people who have already done that, and essentially, it is just taking other people’s work.

Just like the voice acting path, not cool. I don’t like that, and I don’t like the direction it is going because what it is doing is it’s making people lazy and uninspired to look for other artists and voice actors.

They either don’t have the money, or they just want to use it because it’s free. I mean, who doesn’t like free? If someone handed you free money essentially or just, “Hey, have this really creative art thing I made for free; you don’t have to pay for it,” who isn’t going to take it? Ya know what I mean?

So yeah, in this day and age, it’s like giving people free candy, and they just want to take it, and I think we’d be better off without it rather than actually having it. While it does good, it also does bad, and the bad, I think, strongly outweighs the good in my opinion.

With the tensions surrounding AI and how it affects various creative industries worldwide, such as graphic design, illustrators and actors from multiple sectors, such as Japan, have created guilds known as “No More Unauthorized AI Generation.” These organizations are designed to stop using voice actors’ voices in unauthorised projects. As a voice actor, what are your thoughts about AI being used as a tool in the entertainment industry?

Gamer Goku: This right here is what I mean, this is where the problems start. When it comes to voice acting and digital art, it’s a problem. Now, I am guilty of previously using some AI art in my earlier thumbnails.

Some of the AI voices have been getting VERY good recently, to the point it is difficult to tell if it’s AI or a real person. Some voices include Master Chief, Darth Vader, Morgan Freeman, and the list goes on… AI is now almost perfect at replicating monotone-sounding voices.

However, the more emotion there is, the harder it is to do. And it’s gotten to the point that it seems the majority of people now think even real people such as myself are using AI to do voices. Hell, look at Sean Schemmel, for instance! He thought I sounded so accurate to his own portrayal of Goku that he assumed I was using an AI of HIS OWN VOICE! That speaks volumes. And it’s only going to improve.

Just think how bad AI sounded three or four years ago; it is nothing like it is now. Some day soon, years from now, voice actors could be out of a job. It’s the same with artists. I mean, why spend the real money that you need for food and warmth when you can generate it as AI completely for free? That’s the mindset of a LOT of people. And it’s concerning, to say the least.

Throughout History, we have witnessed many technological advancements, be it photography, cars, printers, etc. All these advancements were a push from what we used before them.

However, still, somehow, they and their predecessors have found common ground and have co-existed for many years, be it how the printing press is still being used as a niche and mass-used practice such as stamp press, photography evolving to a resource for artists of all kind to be used as a reference or to be used in various magazines in creative ways.

Do you feel AI and Art can co-exist and not have a future where AI wholly takes over?

Gamer Goku: As I just touched upon earlier, maybe it really just depends on whether there was some kind of solution that was found if we could find a way to use AI where it doesn’t steal other people’s work. It can be generated with its own creative mind, it can become, and it’s a scary term, but if it can become sentient and not attack us, please! Like Judgement Day from Terminator 2, good ole Sky Net.

If it can become sentient and work with us and be creative and do its form of expression at art, creativity, whatever, then yeah, I think if it does its own thing and doesn’t steal from other people’s work, then sure! I can see it working.

I know it’s not gonna happen in my lifetime. I don’t think we are going to be at that point with AI. I think it’s going to be a current thing, the way it is currently going to happen in decades to come. It is just going to get better and better and increase concern more and more.

But when AI gets to the point of it becoming “sentient.” Which again is scary, but if it works, if it actually doesn’t become a threat to humanity and actually works and people don’t use it for dangerous things, as long as you don’t put AI into nuclear power stations, stuff like that.

But I think we will be fine if it doesn’t change things. I think we can live with it, so it’s a big, big YES! So I am just going to say maybe as a short-term answer.

For the many aspiring voice actors worldwide, especially in India, what would you like to advise them regarding protecting their content from social media, as they are known to be notorious for using user data to train their Generative AI?

Gamer Goku: It’s disgusting that social media is even implementing this. It’s sickening. For some sites, it’s a default option, so you HAVE to specify “NO” in the settings of certain places. And by the time they say no to it. It has probably already been stolen. It is just not right, and I entirely disagree with it.

They are just taking people’s creative work, stealing it, giving it to a computer and allowing that computer to sample that person’s work and use it as data. It’s even used in gaming. You open a game these days, and the moment you get onto the title screen, straight away, you get this big block of text, which usually has a “Harry Potter” book worth of information and no one is ever going to read, and it’s an agreement thing, you’d have to agree to it.

If you’re sitting there and reading those, you are permitting them to use the data when you play the game to train the game’s AI system. I would say they do that now for almost every game, at least for all the triple-A titles, and it’s just stupid. I remember the glory days when you could just buy a game, pop the disc into the console and none of that s!”t.

There is no installation, no agreement, just the game itself. They used to make complete games and ship them out, and now they just have “early development games”, which they call full games, and they just keep updating them and giving you all this content and, in return, training their AI model.

As for advice… the only thing I can think of is to post every original art piece made by you with heavy watermark usage. If it’s plastered to hell with watermarks, it might prevent AI from using it as free training.

– I have heard of this free program called “Glaze,” which essentially filters your art. It’s a barrier that can act as a temporary prevention rather than a cure, as its creators have also advised the same.

Gamer Goku: I really like that; it’s going to make the to AI to work around, and that’s pretty cool, especially about people is; when they are really against something like this, they can use their creative minds, and they can make something that’s going to make it harder for technology such as AI to prevent it from what it is meant to do. I really appreciate that; thanks to those people for doing that.

Do you want to share any final thoughts before we end it?

Gamer Goku: Not really, I mean, my last sorta thing is kinda, thank you for having me on the interview, you know, I think, if you have had a viewpoint where you are kind of shrugging your shoulders about AI, “eh, it’s fine, not that big of a deal.”

Maybe I would just say, try and think about it some more. Think as a creative; you know if you are creative and creating something if you, let’s say, creating a piece of art or you are a voice actor or hell, even, let’s say you made a movie or something.

I know that AI does movies and stuff at the moment, like they edit something you may have seen on the internet where people take scenes from movies and use AI to change what is happening. It doesn’t look the best, but then again, the voicing and the art didn’t look the best either when it first started being used a few years back; it’s just gotten so much better.

Give it like ten years, and when you look at those movies, you wouldn’t be able to tell if they are AI anymore. And I know it will happen in that timeframe. If you are creating something that the AI can now also do, do you feel comfortable that something that was artificially made doesn’t have a brain, much less a thought of its own, and it’s doing what you can do, and sometimes it can be better?

Get into that point, think about it, and then I think we need to worry a bit more for the safety of our creative freedom cuz I don’t think many people are. Some people say, “Yeah, it is what it is”, and they move on.

If you want to lead people strongly in the other direction, saying AI is no threat to all, I think you seriously need to look into it through research.