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So happy to hear Apple putting African American voices front and center for this initiative. Along with Google’s push to make camera lenses / computational phot
by 33955985 4y ago
So happy to hear Apple putting African American voices front and center for this initiative. Along with Google’s push to make camera lenses / computational photography more accurate for darker skin (and Apple following suit) this feels like a real step forward for inclusion.
- drexlspivey 4y agoVoices have a race?
- vortegne 4y agoOften there are clear voice and accent differences. Are you saying there aren't? That would be a very strange statement.
- mhuffman 4y agoNot so strange! ... at least when it comes to the legal community[1] (pdf). For those around during the O.J. Simpson trial, this was a very, very contentious topic during the trial! [1]https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/sites.wustl.edu/dist/3/2151/files/2019/09/amspeechbaugh.pdf https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/sites.wustl.edu/dist/3/2151/fi...
- vortegne 4y agoI see your point. And of course it's not a 100% accurate thing, but you know what I mean. Being admissible in court as evidence and furthering representation of a group are two completely different things.
- drexlspivey 4y agoAccent depends on where you were born/raised, not on your race.
- 33955985 4y agoFor the purposes of this discussion, this is a distinction without a difference. “Black voice” is a term of art, meant to convey that the voices in question were trained on features commonly associated with African American English. The voices in the example are US English voices. Race, ethnicity, accent, language — all of these are complex topics with plenty of nuances. Short of writing a dissertation, no simple reply on a web forum will appropriately capture them. The good news is, we don’t need to, since most Americans are familiar with African American English, whether they know the term itself or not, because African Americans have constituted a distinct culture in the US for all of the country’s history.
- drexlspivey 4y agoThis answer might have ben reasonable if US was the only place on earth. When I hear Giannis Antetokoumpo speak english for example he sounds exactly like a Spanish/Greek person speaking English even though the native population of these places is white.
- 33955985 4y agoThe US is Apple’s primary market and the focus of this campaign.
- 33955985 4y agoSpeakers of African American English have distinct timbre, rhythm, and cadences in their speech. There has long been a lack of these distinct features in TTS. Apple appears to have added a “Black voice” (though to be clear, there are speakers of African American English who are not Black) in 2021: https://www.consumerreports.org/digital-assistants/apples-new-siri-voices-resonate-with-some-black-iphone-users-a5978242346/ https://www.consumerreports.org/digital-assistants/apples-ne...
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- tchalla 4y agoAre you saying that voices across all races, cultures etc sound the same?
- drexlspivey 4y agoNo, it depends on the culture. Both whites and blacks raised on East London will have similar accents for example. Since we are strawmanning, are you saying that cultures and races have a 1-to-1 relationship?
- troupe 4y agoI seriously doubt you can tell someone's genetics (their race) based on their voice. On the other hand, you can tell a huge amount about the culture in which they were raised.