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Comment by rcme | Hacker News Reader

The constant worry about malicious deployment is so tired in my opinion. The technology to clone voices exists. Your trust is audio recording should already be shaken. Trying to hobble this product on the grounds of "it's dangerous" just serves to limit creativity.

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I think this in an area where there are many more malicious use cases than legitimate.

It's like spyware developers that claim their software is for remote administration of computers you own.

Don’t take this personally, but I don’t think you’ve thought too hard about what you can do with this technology. For instance, you could create audiobooks for every book ever published. You can change scripts for movies after shooting has already happened. Indie game developers can now afford high quality voices in their games. Even AAA games like The Elder Scrolls can vastly expand their in-game voice variety. I think it’s amazing.

You're not wrong, all of that is great. But the capacity for even more spam calls and scammers generating fraudulent content with cloned voice samples will be an immensely annoying issue. Anyone who owns a phone in the modern age absolutely cannot be a Pollyanna when looking at this technology. There are real issues that must be addressed.

Is access to realistic voice really the limiting factor in spam calling?

Right now if your brother texts you and says they are stuck somewhere and need you to wire them $500, you call them and verify it is legitimate. That is the best answer we have for users.

Once your brothers voice has been cloned and generative AI can deep fake his face on a video call, we are pretty much screwed.

I usually just make sure the number is right.

How would you do that if they're claiming they lost their phone and are thus calling for a pay phone or the phone in a police station?

The technology never should have existed in the first place. Adding to it is still adding additional harm.

asking someone to take basic precautions like “have a fire extinguisher” or “hazmat labeling” just gets in the way of innovation!

well no, their argument is more like: "Everyone should keep advancing the art of cooking, but just make sure they have a fire extinguisher handy" and your response is "Don't use fire to cook because there's a chance it could burn your house down".

Well, jurisdictions are starting to ban gas stoves, so indoor cooking with fire might eventually become a thing of the past.

Generally hazmat labeling is only required when there is a clear and present harm possible. So far, the only argument presented is “theoretically someone could abuse the this” which is very different than “if you’re exposed to this, you will get cancer.”

If a theoretical argument that the masses can’t be trusted due to the actions of a few appeals to you, then I imagine you also support banning encryption to prevent terrorism.

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