5 ms·

The malign applications of this technology greatly outweigh the benign. Discuss.

telesilla 7y ago
On a benign level, many VO artists will find themselves out of work now that we can have Don LaFontaine back. On more positive outlook, perhaps this, along with deepfakes, propels us faster towards an evidence-based society.
- rshi 7y ago
  On a related note, I can definitely foresee a lot of voice actors having their voices cloned for uses they wouldn't really intend. Seems like a big legal grey area as many countries have personality rights.
SamBam 7y ago
Con: It's now easier than ever to fake someone saying something outrageous, and have that lie spread across the world long before the truth can get its boots on. Pro: Humphrey Bogart can direct you to your destination! I admit, it's a hard choice.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
carapace 7y ago
Yes, I think there are almost no legitimate uses for the Farnsworth Device. https://theinfosphere.org/A_Device_That_Makes_Anyone_Sound_Like_Farnsworth https://theinfosphere.org/A_Device_That_Makes_Anyone_Sound_L... My personal hell: My mother has dementia and a land line telephone. Scammers call all the time. All day long. (Although the last few days have been pretty good, I assume somebody somewhere is doing their jobs. The scammers will adapt.) One thing they do is spoof their number to have the same area code and prefix as the one they're calling, so it's like "Oh, is this a neighbor?" or something, but of course it's not. It's an automated machine abusing the telephone network to try to steal money from a little old lady with dementia. Evil men with robots are attacking my mom. Another one called while I was writing this post! This is a goddamned sci-fi dystopia. And now the robo-thieving bastards can imitate my voice!? I'm going to have to get her one of those satellite-linked walkie-talkies or something. Thank God she doesn't use the internet.
- hurrdurr2 7y ago
  Back when I worked as a telemarketer in high school a long time ago, we sold paper subscriptions, and usually the people that didn't cuss us out and hang up right away are the lonely old people who just wanted to chat. I lasted two months and had to quit; felt like we were just taking advantage of them.
- nexuist 7y ago
  I wonder if there is a market for proxying your mom's calls to you, allowing you to approve/deny each one before it gets to your mom? One consistent trend in HN comments is young people complaining about their parents' naivety / incapability to understand the modern scamming world, and wishing they could install something or use some service to keep them from falling into these expensive traps. I know this is a big reason why people get their grandparents iPads instead of full blown laptops, because laptops are much easier to inadvertently install malware on.
- robertjwebb 7y ago
  Land-line telephones are awful because the majority of people who will pick up the phone during the day on Monday-Friday are old or disabled, i.e. easier to manipulate. I don't think I have received a single legitimate phone call during that time. In fact, legit callers know this and know that if they do call for a good reason, the person at the other end will distrust them.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
Con/Pro, depending on perspective: people will have to give up the illusion that they ever really could definitively tell truth from fiction.
tgsovlerkhgsel 7y ago
I think there are many benign applications, and definitely a massive potential for abuse. In practice, it will be used mostly for benign applications, I think, but due to the outsized impact, you could still say the malign applications outweigh. However, what I found reassuring is that the paper actually addresses these concerns: "However, it is also important to note the potential for misuse of this technology, for example impersonating someone's voice without their consent. In order to address safety concerns consistent with principles such as [1], we verify that voices generated by the proposed model can easily be distinguished from real voices" This doesn't mean it won't fool humans, especially when used in a carefully crafted setting (low-quality phone call with distressing content).
- gambler 7y ago
  I'm guessing this will just be used as an excuse by Google to prevent this technology from being easily or fully accessible to others.
mistermann 7y ago
Here's an outlandishly optimistic take on the possibilities.....as the internet and media is flooded with increasingly convincing but false representations of reality, a widespread habit of greater skepticism of "the facts" starts to spread throughout society, leading people to alter the speed at which they form new opinions on various issues (possibly degrading confidence in preexisting opinions), and the manner in which they construct their personal mental model of reality. As the frequency with which an individual's brain is fed data inconsistent with directly observable reality increases, might a tipping point be eventually released where it refuses to continue making snap decisions, and instead delays judgement until a later point in time when more information is available? Perhaps loosely similar to being forced into a stature of "noting" in meditation: https://www.insightmeditationcenter.org/books-articles/mental-noting https://www.insightmeditationcenter.org/books-articles/menta...
- Loughla 7y ago
  I doubt that. I think that as we have to have more skepticism of 'facts' we'll see more and wider splintering of viewpoint based on preferred communication/news agency. If you KNOW Fox News won't lie to you, just go there, and only there. Everything else is a lie. If you KNOW NPR won't lie to you, just go there, but only go there. Everything else is a lie. I think it will only make things worse, because that's the simplest, least 'change' solution for the most people. Society is like water, it always seeks the lowest point.
  - mistermann 7y ago
    I imagine, but I feel like there's a point of absurdity where people just aren't buying it anymore. The whole Epstein thing sure seemed to get a lot of coverage and outright bi-partisan mocking just as one example. /r/politics and the "organic" front page of reddit aside, it seems to me the number of people waking up to the possibility that the whole thing is an utter and complete farce is growing. > Society is like water, it always seeks the lowest point. Let's not forget these things are analogies, not laws. A trend remains in place until it doesn't.
- bitL 7y ago
danShumway 7y ago
I'm currently working by myself on a game that will likely launch without voice acting (text only) because I don't have the money or skill to find and pay voice actors. If I could act out the dialog myself and then purchase or generate voices other than my own to overlay on top of those performances, the quality and accessibility of my finished product would go up dramatically. That would also open up the door for more people to be able to mod the game and add additional dialog options. A big complication with voice acting is that it's essentially static. Even though a big focus of my game is modability, if I do voice acting no-one else can add additional levels or areas or expand on the characters without breaking the recorded dialog. It would be amazing if I could ship some kind of compiler so that modders could record themselves talking through new/changed dialog, and then insert it seamlessly into the game with the correct character's voices.
- skykooler 7y ago
  Exactly. I was working on an Air Traffic Control mod for Kerbal Bpace Program, but the work has gone on hold due to having to find enough people to record all the lines (to have a decent number of airport voices). Being able to record everything once, and only having to find people willing to let me record five seconds of speech rather than a lengthy recording session, would make this much more feasible.
  - smush 7y ago
    Hypothetically, if we were interested in donating some voice samples, where would we look to see what lines were needed?
    - skykooler 7y ago
      I haven't uploaded the list of lines; I should add that to the github repo.
- Dramatize 7y ago
  Have you tried out Replica? I can hook you up with a beta account to see if it'll help with your voice acting. https://replicastudios.com/ https://replicastudios.com/
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
clort 7y ago
There is the obvious, using this technology to put words in somebodies mouth. The more nefarious though, is that certain people who lie all the time can easily claim that a lie you recorded them saying wasn't them and now you can't prove otherwise. Certain people can say whatever they want and just deny it later. "Fake News" indeed..
TomMckenny 7y ago
Are you asking about cordite or gunpowder in genneral?

On a benign level, many VO artists will find themselves out of work now that we can have Don LaFontaine back. On more positive outlook, perhaps this, along with deepfakes, propels us faster towards an evidence-based society.

rshi 7y ago
On a related note, I can definitely foresee a lot of voice actors having their voices cloned for uses they wouldn't really intend. Seems like a big legal grey area as many countries have personality rights.

SamBam 7y ago

Con: It's now easier than ever to fake someone saying something outrageous, and have that lie spread across the world long before the truth can get its boots on. Pro: Humphrey Bogart can direct you to your destination! I admit, it's a hard choice.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

carapace 7y ago

Yes, I think there are almost no legitimate uses for the Farnsworth Device. https://theinfosphere.org/A_Device_That_Makes_Anyone_Sound_Like_Farnsworth https://theinfosphere.org/A_Device_That_Makes_Anyone_Sound_L... My personal hell: My mother has dementia and a land line telephone. Scammers call all the time. All day long. (Although the last few days have been pretty good, I assume somebody somewhere is doing their jobs. The scammers will adapt.) One thing they do is spoof their number to have the same area code and prefix as the one they're calling, so it's like "Oh, is this a neighbor?" or something, but of course it's not. It's an automated machine abusing the telephone network to try to steal money from a little old lady with dementia. Evil men with robots are attacking my mom. Another one called while I was writing this post! This is a goddamned sci-fi dystopia. And now the robo-thieving bastards can imitate my voice!? I'm going to have to get her one of those satellite-linked walkie-talkies or something. Thank God she doesn't use the internet.

hurrdurr2 7y ago
Back when I worked as a telemarketer in high school a long time ago, we sold paper subscriptions, and usually the people that didn't cuss us out and hang up right away are the lonely old people who just wanted to chat. I lasted two months and had to quit; felt like we were just taking advantage of them.
nexuist 7y ago
I wonder if there is a market for proxying your mom's calls to you, allowing you to approve/deny each one before it gets to your mom? One consistent trend in HN comments is young people complaining about their parents' naivety / incapability to understand the modern scamming world, and wishing they could install something or use some service to keep them from falling into these expensive traps. I know this is a big reason why people get their grandparents iPads instead of full blown laptops, because laptops are much easier to inadvertently install malware on.
robertjwebb 7y ago
Land-line telephones are awful because the majority of people who will pick up the phone during the day on Monday-Friday are old or disabled, i.e. easier to manipulate. I don't think I have received a single legitimate phone call during that time. In fact, legit callers know this and know that if they do call for a good reason, the person at the other end will distrust them.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago

Con/Pro, depending on perspective: people will have to give up the illusion that they ever really could definitively tell truth from fiction.

tgsovlerkhgsel 7y ago

I think there are many benign applications, and definitely a massive potential for abuse. In practice, it will be used mostly for benign applications, I think, but due to the outsized impact, you could still say the malign applications outweigh. However, what I found reassuring is that the paper actually addresses these concerns: "However, it is also important to note the potential for misuse of this technology, for example impersonating someone's voice without their consent. In order to address safety concerns consistent with principles such as [1], we verify that voices generated by the proposed model can easily be distinguished from real voices" This doesn't mean it won't fool humans, especially when used in a carefully crafted setting (low-quality phone call with distressing content).

gambler 7y ago
I'm guessing this will just be used as an excuse by Google to prevent this technology from being easily or fully accessible to others.

mistermann 7y ago

Here's an outlandishly optimistic take on the possibilities.....as the internet and media is flooded with increasingly convincing but false representations of reality, a widespread habit of greater skepticism of "the facts" starts to spread throughout society, leading people to alter the speed at which they form new opinions on various issues (possibly degrading confidence in preexisting opinions), and the manner in which they construct their personal mental model of reality. As the frequency with which an individual's brain is fed data inconsistent with directly observable reality increases, might a tipping point be eventually released where it refuses to continue making snap decisions, and instead delays judgement until a later point in time when more information is available? Perhaps loosely similar to being forced into a stature of "noting" in meditation: https://www.insightmeditationcenter.org/books-articles/mental-noting https://www.insightmeditationcenter.org/books-articles/menta...

Loughla 7y ago
I doubt that. I think that as we have to have more skepticism of 'facts' we'll see more and wider splintering of viewpoint based on preferred communication/news agency. If you KNOW Fox News won't lie to you, just go there, and only there. Everything else is a lie. If you KNOW NPR won't lie to you, just go there, but only go there. Everything else is a lie. I think it will only make things worse, because that's the simplest, least 'change' solution for the most people. Society is like water, it always seeks the lowest point.
- mistermann 7y ago
  I imagine, but I feel like there's a point of absurdity where people just aren't buying it anymore. The whole Epstein thing sure seemed to get a lot of coverage and outright bi-partisan mocking just as one example. /r/politics and the "organic" front page of reddit aside, it seems to me the number of people waking up to the possibility that the whole thing is an utter and complete farce is growing. > Society is like water, it always seeks the lowest point. Let's not forget these things are analogies, not laws. A trend remains in place until it doesn't.
bitL 7y ago

danShumway 7y ago

I'm currently working by myself on a game that will likely launch without voice acting (text only) because I don't have the money or skill to find and pay voice actors. If I could act out the dialog myself and then purchase or generate voices other than my own to overlay on top of those performances, the quality and accessibility of my finished product would go up dramatically. That would also open up the door for more people to be able to mod the game and add additional dialog options. A big complication with voice acting is that it's essentially static. Even though a big focus of my game is modability, if I do voice acting no-one else can add additional levels or areas or expand on the characters without breaking the recorded dialog. It would be amazing if I could ship some kind of compiler so that modders could record themselves talking through new/changed dialog, and then insert it seamlessly into the game with the correct character's voices.

skykooler 7y ago
Exactly. I was working on an Air Traffic Control mod for Kerbal Bpace Program, but the work has gone on hold due to having to find enough people to record all the lines (to have a decent number of airport voices). Being able to record everything once, and only having to find people willing to let me record five seconds of speech rather than a lengthy recording session, would make this much more feasible.
- smush 7y ago
  Hypothetically, if we were interested in donating some voice samples, where would we look to see what lines were needed?
  - skykooler 7y ago
    I haven't uploaded the list of lines; I should add that to the github repo.
Dramatize 7y ago
Have you tried out Replica? I can hook you up with a beta account to see if it'll help with your voice acting. https://replicastudios.com/ https://replicastudios.com/

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

clort 7y ago

There is the obvious, using this technology to put words in somebodies mouth. The more nefarious though, is that certain people who lie all the time can easily claim that a lie you recorded them saying wasn't them and now you can't prove otherwise. Certain people can say whatever they want and just deny it later. "Fake News" indeed..

TomMckenny 7y ago

Are you asking about cordite or gunpowder in genneral?