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Comment by Jevon23 | Hacker News Reader

There are no legitimate uses for this technology. Its only purpose is to scam and deceive. It should be regulated in the same way that nukes and guns are regulated. Contrary to what a lot of the HN crowd thinks, regulation of technology is certainly nothing new. Up until now personal computing has been largely free of regulation, but that doesn’t mean we couldn’t start.

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Once perfected, I can imagine there are many legitimate use cases for it. Like an author using their voice to narrate their audiobook without having to spend time in a recording studio, or Hollywood using it instead of dubbing sessions for re-recording muffed lines. It'd also be interesting if this could be used for foreign language dubbing - imagine if it can use the voice profile of an actor to convert subtitle text files into foreign audio language tracks in in the same tone of the actor.

God yes, a dubbed European film without the naff American actor.

Or for games where you can get the language for the NPCs all sorted out and change dialogue right up until it goes gold.

Is the inference so heavy for this that it cannot run as part of the game? I want to play planescape torment with the text read to me, I don't know who I'll cast though. I suspect I actually like text dialogue in games better.

I recently updated my telephone contact with a large brokerage service.

Part of this was to voiceprint me during the conversation.

The agent assured me that this was more secure than asking me the customary identification questions, and that their system would just use the voice identification in the future.

> There are no legitimate uses for this technology.

I mean this kindly: your lack of imagination is not an adequate replacement for actual facts

>I mean this kindly

I don't lol. OP is a bundle of sticks. Every time there's a tiny bit of tech progress with this stuff they just go "MAH REGULASHIONS PLEASE PAPA GOVERNMENT SAVE US!"

You can look in this thread for legitimate non-deceptive uses. Voice synthesis for people with degenerative diseases like ALS, for example.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34309432

I disagree that this has no legitimate uses. This could be a phenomenal prosthesis for people who have lost their ability to speak. For example, many ALS patients.

I think it's important to keep considering whether or not something should be regulated, at least keep asking and not fall victim to an echo chamber.

But in this case, couldn't your argument have been applied to photoshop or video manipulation software? Those are meant to deceive, right?

> There are no legitimate uses for this technology.

What about this: You have a voice actor whose voice is part of a company's brand (maybe for an animated mascot). You can now also use that voice for dynamic text, for example audio books or for a voice assistant.

Flip it around and it works too. Anyone who wants to could potentially set all of the text-to-speech systems they use (their phone/house's voice interaction, listening to audiobooks, warning messages from their car/plane, etc.) to whichever voice profile they like best. Basically what TTS has been trying to do since the 70s or 80s, but with an infinite number of natural-sounding voices.

Maybe pick a couple of different ones for context-aware messages. Something familiar/reassuring for most messages, something less comfortable for "terrain!"-type alerts. If the model supports it, it could even morph between the two as the criticality of the message escalates.

Or this: Morgan Freeman reads you all of your audiobooks from now on and they sound so much more profound and relaxing now.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

How long would it take, do you suppose, for ~~Disney~~ $ProductionCompany to simply get rid of the voice actor altogether. Now there's another person without work.

I always find this argument bizzare.

I don't want to live in a world where people are doing jobs that provide no value but only exist because "everyone needs a job". I would literally prefer we give them the money and they do no work than forcing people to do a useless job just for the sake of them working.

Do people really want their jobs to be the equivalent Sisyphus pushing a boulder up a hill aimlessly everyday? There's a reason why this is seen as a divine punishment in the myth.

I personally don't want someone to clone my voice without my permission and then use it to make money. I imagine many people feel the same way.

I agree that I would prefer to move to a society where we don't have to work, but do you honestly think we're moving in that direction? We'll get the "there's no work" part, but not the "and here's some money" part.

I'm not advocating for a world where we don't have to work, more for a world where we only work on stuff that produces value.

I wouldn't worry about that work not existing. At the very least, with the population declining we'll need people to take care of the elderly and I don't think we're anywhere close to automating health care providers. Humans always seem to find more work to do.

Or the voice actor could license their profile to {{ProductionCompany}}, and not even have to go to the recording studio anymore unless it's a project they're personally interested in or where the production team wants to pay extra for a custom performance.

A high school friend of mine did that and became the voice of the "pronounce this name" feature on Facebook.

You could create a lot of jobs by banning the wheel.

I joke with my wife that I'll always be around to bug her, even after I pass. She'll carry my brain around in a jar ala Futurama and talk to me that way.

But, obviously, the technology is getting to the point where a decade or so from now she'll be able to have a GPT-like chat with me with my own voice. The first company to offer that to the loved ones of a deceased person will make a fortune, not for any mode of deception but just to soothe the hurt.

As a father, I like reading to my kids and I know one day they won't ask or I won't be able to.

I've wanted to record readings of some of their favorite books to pass on to them, but if I don't get the chance this seems like a way to get some analog of the experience.

>There are no legitimate uses for this technology

oh please. You never wanted to listen to an article/book in the voice of a narrator you liked? I do. Maybe you should read a bit more.

Just because you lack in thinking of the ways it can improve our lives doesn't mean everyone else doesn't. That's a you problem. Are you so deprived of free thought, and so insecure of your capabilities, that the first thing you do when seeing new technology is turn to the government to curb it? if you don't like it, no one should use it?

>regulation

ah there it is. the 'answer' to every technological progress you have is "regulashions!"

>guns are regulated

thankfully they are not in some places. So it should be regulated the same as they are - Not at all.

you're like OP in that you're just state what you think should be with out really saying why

And Michael Winslow should be gagged and locked up for the sake of humanity!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAv1o9C9qow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NOmalcIZZw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCvqSo0C5ns

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-IJ1AilJ2I

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Winslow

I can think of one... podcast cleanup app:

1. Speech to text

2.fix up/edit text with GPT-3

3.text to speech in the original speaker's voice(s), preserving prosody and inflection with Vall-e.

If done with every participant's consent I don't see how it's not legitimate.

Descript already does this.

you could also just skip step 1 https://twitter.com/lexman_ai

What if I did 3 second long impersonations of characters for a video game. I then used this tech to produce more lines of dialogue for each character in said game.

The difference is that nukes and - in most countries - guns are harder to find. Regulation is easier when you have more centralised distribution channels. Code is infinitely replicable at marginal cost, and so highly accessible once it's open source.

While I agree with you that the net effect of such technology will be negative, there's no way regulation can keep up.

I'm not sure the net effect will be negative. Cheaper and more follow along audiobooks for people with dislexia, a voice for people who lost their own. Lots of bad stuff too sure. But your first point is spot on. There is no stopping it. AI has come to replace all creative endeavors with poorer quality regurgitated substitutes leaving human created things as a luxury for the wealthy... Except people will not stop singing, painting, writing, or coding and too many people enjoy doing those things for the price to ever go too high. Except law clerks, and contract lawyers. They will probably just go away, but now they can pick that paintbrush up, or get the band back together. Or code up an unauthorized sttng game with synthetic vocals for picard.

Sorry buddy but open source software eventually catches up and you can’t stop it.

People just don’t realize that technology is what is behind the ability for people to wreak havoc on an unprecedented scale. One specific organism can’t do that much, even with a sword. But today, every person will have more and more power, and you can’t possibly stop them all!

There was a 2011 paper/essay which argued that in the near future there will be a world war between those wanting to regulate AI (the democratic West) and those who do not (authoritarian regimes).

The regulatory impulse seems to be going the opposite direction so far, China recently banned deepfakes etc.

Only banned their citizens using it, but on the other hand China is leader in using AI against their population (face recognition, ...)

I would rather assume that this technology exists unfettered by any regulation and instead figure out how to deal with the ramifications.

Guns are regulated, but we still have metal detectors.

I have a project in mind to replicate my dead father's voice. Would be nice to "have a conversation" with him again.

Ray Kurzweil would like to have a word with you.

Voice cloning is a way to implement TTS diversity and allow authors to automate their own voices.

Only the state and criminals should have something. What could go wrong?

On what would we base this regulation? A hazy feeling of discomfort?

You’re joking, right?

Reading audiobooks seems like a good use case.

Technology like this should absolutley be regulated in the same way guns should be - not at all.

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