An engineer released an AI voice generator that can mimic the voices of famous people. Brandon Thomas developed Vocodes as a "pandemic side project." Users type what they want the AI to say, and the system speaks it out loud in the voices of celebrities like Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Betty White, and Christopher Lee.
More:
- Sam Altman and Sir David Attenborough are rated as the highest quality voices, with Barack Obama and Arnold Schwarzenegger listed as the worst.
- HT Tech tried out Vocodes and said it couldn't read everything. When it can't pronounce a word, the AI leaves it out.
- The Next Web writer Mix notes that it raises ethical and legal questions about how deepfakes could be used for nefarious purposes, like imitating celebrities without their permission.
- Thomas told Mix that he believes the government shouldn't be "overly protective" of machine learning applications, as they will play a large role in creating all virtual musicians and influencers. He acknowledged we might need legal protections against fraud or slander.