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Serious question. What is the difference in implications between this and a professional voice impersonator? I don't think it's as dangerous as we think it is.

Serious question. What is the difference in implications between this and a professional voice impersonator? I don't think it's as dangerous as we think it is. All of the consequences that Play.ht bring to society are already possible today and have been for some time. The difference is that it will be easier, but I don't think that makes it any more dangerous.

123pie123 4y ago
there's a massive higher bar in effort and costs in getting an impersonator whilst this is cheap and easy - increasing the potential for scams in big way - even to the point of automating the scam
jtr1 4y ago
> The difference is that it will be easier Seems like you know what the difference is, you just haven't assigned it the proper weight.
detrites 4y ago
Two differences I can think of, either side the debate: 1) The impersonation can be carried out in real-time by the criminal themselves. No need to employ anyone else. (No trail leading to them.) 2) Pro impersonators aren't common in society. They are limited as an asset and not duplicatable. So, using one cannot spread like wildfire and overwhelm our awareness that voice impersonation is something of a common risk. Maybe the second could hold the first in check. I think disruptive tech like this & similar advances in visuals come with a societal impact that lessens potentials for realising the bigger fears. But people just love fears.
kossTKR 4y ago
Scaling + ease of use. Compare: 1) Use lots of time to find person who can impersonate specific other person. Unless you give them a lot of money or threats to shut up you can't use them to real time decieve someone. 2) Clone 1 million voices from tiktok in 1 minute. Contact 10 million relatives with a synth voice that is intelligent enough to answer questions. We will have billions of AI's, containers, programs, agents running around trying to deceive absolutely everyone and their grandmother 24/7 soon.
palata 4y ago
Put the recent tech advances together: we can now ask bots to generate an identity online that looks like a legit human (with pictures, audio, text). Of course a human could do that manually, but with those AIs it's a completely different scale, and it can be automated (so someone with no skills can click a button "generate 10k fake identities online"). Maybe even with one click, those techs could generate a fake coworker and send phishing e-mails. Suddenly every single e-mail you receive (or friend request or call) could be a very convincing fake. You don't have to be a high-value target anymore, it's all automated. That makes it much more dangerous: from "can be forged manually with time and resources" to "everyone can do it at scale for free".

123pie123 4y ago

there's a massive higher bar in effort and costs in getting an impersonator whilst this is cheap and easy - increasing the potential for scams in big way - even to the point of automating the scam

jtr1 4y ago

> The difference is that it will be easier Seems like you know what the difference is, you just haven't assigned it the proper weight.

detrites 4y ago

Two differences I can think of, either side the debate: 1) The impersonation can be carried out in real-time by the criminal themselves. No need to employ anyone else. (No trail leading to them.) 2) Pro impersonators aren't common in society. They are limited as an asset and not duplicatable. So, using one cannot spread like wildfire and overwhelm our awareness that voice impersonation is something of a common risk. Maybe the second could hold the first in check. I think disruptive tech like this & similar advances in visuals come with a societal impact that lessens potentials for realising the bigger fears. But people just love fears.

kossTKR 4y ago

Scaling + ease of use. Compare: 1) Use lots of time to find person who can impersonate specific other person. Unless you give them a lot of money or threats to shut up you can't use them to real time decieve someone. 2) Clone 1 million voices from tiktok in 1 minute. Contact 10 million relatives with a synth voice that is intelligent enough to answer questions. We will have billions of AI's, containers, programs, agents running around trying to deceive absolutely everyone and their grandmother 24/7 soon.

palata 4y ago

Put the recent tech advances together: we can now ask bots to generate an identity online that looks like a legit human (with pictures, audio, text). Of course a human could do that manually, but with those AIs it's a completely different scale, and it can be automated (so someone with no skills can click a button "generate 10k fake identities online"). Maybe even with one click, those techs could generate a fake coworker and send phishing e-mails. Suddenly every single e-mail you receive (or friend request or call) could be a very convincing fake. You don't have to be a high-value target anymore, it's all automated. That makes it much more dangerous: from "can be forged manually with time and resources" to "everyone can do it at scale for free".