- OpenAI’s Voice Engine uses text-to-speech API and ChatGPT Voice technology to create emotive, realistic voices, with preliminary insights shared from a small-scale preview.
- OpenAI’s Voice Engine, praised for its language translation capabilities, is cautiously released due to concerns about potential abuses and synthetic voice misuse.
- OpenAI is advocating for responsible synthetic voice deployment, citing the recent incident of Steve Kramer cloning President Biden’s voice for informed decision-making.
OpenAI has unveiled Voice Engine, an AI-based audio cloning tool, despite its potential for reading assistance and voice recognition. The company is concerned about potential abuse and is committed to developing safe and beneficial AI.
Excellent technological capabilities
OpenAI’s Voice Engine uses its text-to-speech API and ChatGPT Voice technology to clone a voice, using a 15-second sample to create emotive and realistic voices, unlike traditional reading methods that require a stranger’s tone and inflection.
The company has released preliminary insights and results from a small-scale preview of its Voice Engine model, which uses text input and a 15-second audio sample to generate natural-sounding speech.
Voice Engine’s training data is unclear, causing concern for AI companies accused of copyright violations. OpenAI claims fair use, but rights holders are suing for unpaid compensation.
Also read: Google.org launches generative AI accelerator for nonprofits
The double-edged sword of OpenAI
OpenAI’s Voice Engine, which allows users to change the language of a speaker, has been praised for its impressive audio clips and language translation capabilities. However, the company is taking a cautious approach to broader release due to the potential for synthetic voice misuse. OpenAI, which launched ChatGPT publicly in late 2022, has become a massive entity, and its release could potentially expose new abuses.
OpenAI is aiming to discuss the responsible deployment of synthetic voices and how society can adapt to these new capabilities. In a recent incident, Steve Kramer cloned President Joe Biden’s voice to create a robocall message urging people not to vote in the New Hampshire primary. OpenAI plans to make informed decisions based on conversations and small-scale tests, aiming to create a more informed understanding of the technology’s potential.
The latest crypto scam uses real actors hired on Fiverr to read a script, presenting the scam as authentic. This highlights the potential dangers of using fake AI-generated voices in scams, as scam artists will always exploit emerging tools to deceive people out of their money.
