EGN NEWS DESK
First, OpenAI supplied a instrument that allowed individuals to create digital pictures just by describing what they wished to see. Then, it constructed related expertise that generated full-motion video like one thing from a Hollywood film.
Now, it has unveiled expertise that may recreate somebody’s voice.
The high-profile A.I. start-up mentioned on Friday {that a} small group of companies was testing a brand new OpenAI system, Voice Engine, that may recreate an individual’s voice from a 15-second recording. If you add a recording of your self and a paragraph of textual content, it might probably learn the textual content utilizing an artificial voice that feels like yours.
The textual content doesn’t should be in your native language. If you might be an English speaker, for instance, it might probably recreate your voice in Spanish, French, Chinese or many different languages.
OpenAI just isn’t sharing the expertise extra extensively as a result of it’s nonetheless making an attempt to grasp its potential risks. Like picture and video mills, a voice generator may assist unfold disinformation throughout social media. It may additionally enable criminals to impersonate individuals on-line or throughout telephone calls.
The firm mentioned it was notably anxious that this sort of expertise could possibly be used to interrupt voice authenticators that management entry to on-line banking accounts and different private purposes.
“This is a delicate factor, and it is very important get it proper,” an OpenAI product manager, Jeff Harris, mentioned in an interview.
The firm is exploring methods of watermarking artificial voices or including controls that stop individuals from utilizing the expertise with the voices of politicians or different outstanding figures.
Last month, OpenAI took an identical method when it unveiled its video generator, Sora. It confirmed off the expertise however didn’t publicly launch it.
OpenAI is among the many many corporations which have developed a brand new breed of A.I. expertise that may shortly and simply generate artificial voices. They embrace tech giants like Google in addition to start-ups just like the New York-based ElevenLabs. (The New York Times has sued OpenAI and its associate, Microsoft, on claims of copyright infringement involving synthetic intelligence methods that generate textual content.)
Businesses can use these applied sciences to generate audiobooks, give voice to on-line chatbots and even construct an automatic radio station DJ. Since final yr, OpenAI has used its expertise to energy a model of ChatGPT that speaks. And it has lengthy supplied companies an array of voices that can be utilized for related purposes. All of them had been constructed from clips supplied by voice actors.
But the corporate has not but supplied a public instrument that may enable people and companies to recreate voices from a brief clip as Voice Engine does. The skill to recreate any voice on this means, Mr. Harris mentioned, is what makes the expertise harmful. The expertise could possibly be notably harmful in an election yr, he mentioned.
In January, New Hampshire residents acquired robocall messages that dissuaded them from voting within the state major in a voice that was probably artificially generated to sound like President Biden. The Federal Communications Commission later outlawed such calls.
Mr. Harris mentioned OpenAI had no rapid plans to earn a living from the expertise. He mentioned the instrument could possibly be notably helpful to individuals who misplaced their voices by way of sickness or accident.
He demonstrated how the expertise had been used to recreate a lady’s voice after mind most cancers broken it. She may now converse, he mentioned, after offering a short recording of a presentation she had as soon as made as a excessive schooler.
