Voice synthesis has come a good distance since 1978’s Converse & Spell toy, which as soon as wowed folks with its state-of-the-art capacity to learn phrases aloud utilizing an digital voice. Now, utilizing deep-learning AI fashions, software program can create not solely realistic-sounding voices however may convincingly imitate present voices utilizing small samples of audio.
Alongside these traces, OpenAI this week introduced Voice Engine, a text-to-speech AI mannequin for creating artificial voices based mostly on a 15-second phase of recorded audio. It has supplied audio samples of the Voice Engine in motion on its web site.
As soon as a voice is cloned, a person can enter textual content into the Voice Engine and get an AI-generated voice consequence. However OpenAI will not be able to extensively launch its expertise. The corporate initially deliberate to launch a pilot program for builders to enroll in the Voice Engine API earlier this month. However after extra consideration about moral implications, the corporate determined to cut back its ambitions for now.
“According to our strategy to AI security and our voluntary commitments, we’re selecting to preview however not extensively launch this expertise at the moment,” the corporate writes. “We hope this preview of Voice Engine each underscores its potential and likewise motivates the necessity to bolster societal resilience in opposition to the challenges introduced by ever extra convincing generative fashions.”
Voice cloning tech usually will not be notably new—there have been a number of AI voice synthesis fashions since 2022, and the tech is energetic within the open supply neighborhood with packages like OpenVoice and XTTSv2. However the concept OpenAI is inching towards letting anybody use its specific model of voice tech is notable. And in some methods, the corporate’s reticence to launch it totally is perhaps the larger story.
OpenAI says that advantages of its voice expertise embody offering studying help via natural-sounding voices, enabling international attain for creators by translating content material whereas preserving native accents, supporting non-verbal people with customized speech choices, and helping sufferers in recovering their very own voice after speech-impairing circumstances.
But it surely additionally signifies that anybody with 15 seconds of somebody’s recorded voice might successfully clone it, and that has apparent implications for potential misuse. Even when OpenAI by no means extensively releases its Voice Engine, the power to clone voices has already brought on hassle in society via telephone scams the place somebody imitates a liked one’s voice and election marketing campaign robocalls that includes cloned voices from politicians like Joe Biden.
Additionally, researchers and reporters have proven that voice-cloning expertise can be utilized to interrupt into financial institution accounts that use voice authentication (reminiscent of Chase’s Voice ID), which prompted US senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, the chair of the US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and City Affairs, to ship a letter to the CEOs of a number of main banks in Could 2023 to inquire concerning the safety measures banks are taking to counteract AI-powered dangers.
OpenAI acknowledges that the tech would possibly trigger hassle if broadly launched, so it is initially making an attempt to work round these points with a algorithm. It has been testing the expertise with a set of choose accomplice corporations since final 12 months. For instance, video synthesis firm HeyGen has been utilizing the mannequin to translate a speaker’s voice into different languages whereas holding the identical vocal sound.
