Experts at Samsung are currently working to have the software assistant called Bixby clone a user’s voice when answering calls.
Artificial intelligence is making big waves in the world of tech, and this is just another big step in that direction. However, voice cloning is certainly causing some concern when it comes to privacy and consent as well. I know I’m a little apprehensive to jump right into using it, so let’s get some facts straight before we do.
What is voice cloning?
Voice cloning is the creation of an artificial simulation of a person’s voice using artificial intelligence technology. When this concept first came about, a person would need to produce a large amount of recorded speech to clone their voice.
However, since the software is developing at such a rapid pace, you can now generate a clone of a voice with just a few minutes of recorded speech.
Samsung’s Bixby upgrade is allowing English speakers to answer calls by typing a message. Once that message is typed, Bixby can convert it to audio and communicate it to the caller directly on their behalf. There is also a feature known as the Bixby Custom Voice Creator, which lets you record different sentences for Bixby to analyze and create an AI-generated copy of your voice and tone.
What are the pros of voice cloning?
I can already think of a few pros for cloning a person’s voice. First, there’s the accessibility perspective where voice cloning can assist people who have lost their ability to speak due to illness or injury. Voice cloning can also be used to create personalized digital assistants, chatbots, and other virtual entities. In addition, it can be used to personalize customer experiences by creating a unique and recognizable voice for a brand.
There’s also the cost savings aspect of voice cloning. It can significantly reduce the cost of creating voiceovers for videos and other media. Instead of hiring a professional voice actor, companies can use voice cloning technology to create a synthetic voice that sounds just like a human voice.
Finally, voice cloning can save time by automating certain tasks that would normally require human intervention, like customer service chatbots that can be programmed to respond to common queries using a cloned voice.
What are the cons of voice cloning?
Although there are plenty of pros, my mind immediately jumped to all the cons that voice cloning has as well.
First, we have to think about our privacy. All those scammers out there can use voice cloning as a way of stealing someone’s identity. Since you only need a few minutes of recorded speech to do so, a scammer can easily steal someone’s voice and use it for whatever means they wish. And because the concept is so new, there isn’t much out there to stop them.
Something else to consider is that voice cloning has already been used as a way to promote hateful rhetoric. Back in February, one person decided to take President Biden’s voice and use it in a video to make it look like he was attacking transgender people. It was quickly determined that the video was fake, however, it still got thousands of views on social media.
Another con is that it has the potential to replace human voiceover artists and customer service representatives, leading to the loss of jobs in these industries.
Scammers are also using voice cloning as a way to make them sound more legit when calling more vulnerable people. They convince these people to transfer large sums of money into their accounts, and there is no way to track them down afterward because the voice they used was not even their own.
This is a deeply concerning risk, and frankly, I think that there especially needs to be more steps taken toward preventing these privacy invasions before we jump right into using voice cloning.
How do you feel about AI voice cloning taking over? Let us know your thoughts.
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