10 ms·

In the first clip, I'd say 80% of the soundbites were obviously robot-like, but one or two of the "Obama" quotes were startlingly clear - "The good news is, tha

In the first clip, I'd say 80% of the soundbites were obviously robot-like, but one or two of the "Obama" quotes were startlingly clear - "The good news is, that they will offer the technology to anyone" - I can't hear anything wrong with that in the first clip at all. If they were all that quality I'd say we'd be easily fooled. As a proof of concept this is pretty big.

bpicolo 9y ago
I can definitely hear issues with that phrase. It has quite robotic drop-offs. Though coming soon: Neural networks to determine whether speech is NN-generated? :P
- Macuyiko 9y ago
  > Neural networks to determine whether speech is NN-generated? I guess this would be an ideal use case for a generative adversarial network based approach.
- blowski 9y ago
  In a sort of Turing Test where I don't know who's a robot, or where I'm not even expecting a robot, it would probably be a bit harder.
- uremog 9y ago
  And then the generators train their own generation NN against that :P
  - hoschicz 9y ago
    And you have invented Generative Adversarial Networks. They are the basis of all new ML findings, like pix2pix.
- robryk 9y ago
  This is likely part of how the speech-generating NNs are trained (ie. there's a generated-speech-detector and the network is trained to fool it, while it is also trained): https://arxiv.org/abs/1406.2661 https://arxiv.org/abs/1406.2661
microtherion 9y ago
The "Obama" material sounded quite good, but reverb can cover up a multitude of sins...
- i336_ 9y ago
  Huh. That means that recordings of speeches/performances from concert halls are potentially suspicious. Know of any other instances of reverb covering things up? This is interesting!
  - microtherion 9y ago
    I haven't worked extensively in voice adaptation, but I learned working in text-to-speech that adding a bit of reverb is quite effective at covering up artifacts. Something similar seems to be going on in live vocals. If you lack confidence in your own voice, adding a bit of reverb can make it sound much better. Not sure what's going on — whether the reverb jams the critical listening facilities in one's brain or something like that.
    - i336_ 9y ago
      Wow. TIL x 2! Now I understand why I liked adding a bit of reverb when listening to old MOD/IT/S3M audio files - it covered up the "digitalness" of the song structure a bit. Thanks for the live vocals tidbit too, that's definitely something to file away. I wonder how far you could push that in a presentational context (ie, when giving speeches), or whether "who left the speakers in 'dramatic cathedral' mode" would happen before "I dunno what they did to the audio but it sounds great". Maybe if the presentation area was fairly open/large it could work; the question is whether it would have a constructive effect.
      - Infernal 9y ago
        In my (admittedly limited) experience mixing for both recording and live settings, I can say that the "sounds great" comes a long way before the "dramatic cathedral mode". If you can listen to it and hear reverb (unless you're going for that effect) you're doing it wrong. What you want is a bit of fullness, slightly softer edges at the end of words/sentences. It's similar to the difference between 24fps cinema and 60fps home video. The video/clean signal retains more of the original information and is "more correct", but 24fps/touch of reverb adds a nuance that keeps things from getting too clinical. As to why we interpret clean signal == clinical == bad.... I can't really speculate.

bpicolo 9y ago

I can definitely hear issues with that phrase. It has quite robotic drop-offs. Though coming soon: Neural networks to determine whether speech is NN-generated? :P

Macuyiko 9y ago
> Neural networks to determine whether speech is NN-generated? I guess this would be an ideal use case for a generative adversarial network based approach.
blowski 9y ago
In a sort of Turing Test where I don't know who's a robot, or where I'm not even expecting a robot, it would probably be a bit harder.
uremog 9y ago
And then the generators train their own generation NN against that :P
- hoschicz 9y ago
  And you have invented Generative Adversarial Networks. They are the basis of all new ML findings, like pix2pix.
robryk 9y ago
This is likely part of how the speech-generating NNs are trained (ie. there's a generated-speech-detector and the network is trained to fool it, while it is also trained): https://arxiv.org/abs/1406.2661 https://arxiv.org/abs/1406.2661

microtherion 9y ago

The "Obama" material sounded quite good, but reverb can cover up a multitude of sins...

i336_ 9y ago
Huh. That means that recordings of speeches/performances from concert halls are potentially suspicious. Know of any other instances of reverb covering things up? This is interesting!
- microtherion 9y ago
  I haven't worked extensively in voice adaptation, but I learned working in text-to-speech that adding a bit of reverb is quite effective at covering up artifacts. Something similar seems to be going on in live vocals. If you lack confidence in your own voice, adding a bit of reverb can make it sound much better. Not sure what's going on — whether the reverb jams the critical listening facilities in one's brain or something like that.
  - i336_ 9y ago
    Wow. TIL x 2! Now I understand why I liked adding a bit of reverb when listening to old MOD/IT/S3M audio files - it covered up the "digitalness" of the song structure a bit. Thanks for the live vocals tidbit too, that's definitely something to file away. I wonder how far you could push that in a presentational context (ie, when giving speeches), or whether "who left the speakers in 'dramatic cathedral' mode" would happen before "I dunno what they did to the audio but it sounds great". Maybe if the presentation area was fairly open/large it could work; the question is whether it would have a constructive effect.
    - Infernal 9y ago
      In my (admittedly limited) experience mixing for both recording and live settings, I can say that the "sounds great" comes a long way before the "dramatic cathedral mode". If you can listen to it and hear reverb (unless you're going for that effect) you're doing it wrong. What you want is a bit of fullness, slightly softer edges at the end of words/sentences. It's similar to the difference between 24fps cinema and 60fps home video. The video/clean signal retains more of the original information and is "more correct", but 24fps/touch of reverb adds a nuance that keeps things from getting too clinical. As to why we interpret clean signal == clinical == bad.... I can't really speculate.