Op-Ed: I’m Totally Fine With AI Taking Hank Azaria’s Job On “The Simpsons”

When it comes to technology of any kind, there’s no one town more further away from understanding most tech industries than the county and city of Los Angeles, most notably Hollywood. For decades we’ve seen this town date twenty-plus years to catch up to the music business with the advent of streaming, nearly bankrupting most artists in the process. When Netflix showed up, most thought the company would be a novelty subscription provider of mail-order DVD’s with even the CEO of Blockbuster video laughing Ted Sarandos and Reid Hastings out of a room when the thought of an acquisition came about. And despite the fact that software has been utilized by various TV and movie industries for a bit now, with brands like Adobe, Final Draft, and Toon Boom all making billions in standardizing the tech stack of what today’s Hollywood elite use to produce content, people will then be potentially shocked at some or all of these companies utilizing AI to try and produce a better tech product.

For my money, I don’t think AI will actually be a net positive in the proliferation of content and will continue to democratize content production that helps producers try and break in. At the end of the day, generative AI is just another potential tool on people’s tool belts to either use/or not, to get jobs done. Everything is a meritocracy, especially showbiz, viewers are only going to watch what they want to watch that may or may not have AI. While the promo business may die in the next year or so, I do think art will be just fine. Could AI replace voice actors? Sure. But those AI voice actors would have to be as good as the real voice actors and if they aren’t I’m not onboard. That said, there’s one guy I would be totally fine seeing replaced by AI, he works on The Simpsons and his name is Hank Azaria.

Several years ago Hank helped kick off a wave of departure of white voice actors portraying PoC characters in animation when he stepped aside from voicing a number of characters like Apu, Bumblebee Man, Carl, Lou, and a host of others after a documentary called The Problem with Apu sloppily made a case against these practices. The rise of D.E.I. measures would set in and replace PoC characters voiced by PoC voice actors with most other PoC characters being written out entirely. Ironically enough, America would vote-in President Donald Trump who, within his first few weeks, administered executive actions to remove D.E.I. practices across federal government agencies with companies like Disney, Meta, and others soon following suit. One person seen at the Trump inauguration last month, one of Apu’s biggest critics, Adi Shankar, creator of Netflix’s upcoming Devil May Cry. 

If any other voice actor who did not take part in these practices were to do this interview, I wouldn’t have batted an eye. But when I saw Hank Azaria plead a case to the NY Times as to whether or not AI could potentially take his job, I honestly felt little to no remorse for the voice actor who was so eager to watch everyone else take apart his voice roles just a couple of years ago. After years of now decrying his Emmy-winning role of “Apu” and insinuating for years that writers and producers for The Simpsons were somehow racist was a disgusting course of action, so if the writers and producers of The Simpsons were to one day wake up and replace all of Hank’s voices with AI, I’d be fine with it. Harry Shearer and everyone else attempting to fight for freedom of expression during these aforementioned years I’d never want to see replaced, not only by AI measures but any measures at all, but Hank Azaria deserves no remorse from me.

Of course there is the age issue we will have to contend with on The Simpsons. We just saw Milhouse’s voice actor Pamela Hayden retire from the role at the age of 71 and with fellow actors like Harry Shearer and Julie Kavner also heading into their mid-to-late seventies one has to wonder how much longer we have with the standard voices of characters like Mr. Burns, Marge, Patty and Selma, Smithers, Ned, and others. Do I think AI should replace these voice actors? No. Do I think new actors should be brought in to mimic these voices for future seasons of The Simpsons? No. But, if the producers of The Simpsons wanted to replace Hank Azaria via AI, I wouldn’t deny them that. For the years of bullshit he’s put that franchise through, rhetoric that has since helped bring the ratings down so low that newcomer to Animation Domination, Universal Basic Guys, is nearly matching it in overall viewership.

If Hank were to save face and turnaround and pull a Disney or Meta and say that he would restore all of his characters back to the way they were before the height of cancel culture came through then maybe I’ll feel something else entirely, but for now, I’m rooting for AI to replace him on all of his voices on The Simpsons, past and present.