3 ms·

Beyond a certain level of quality, what is the purpose of improving similarity with human voice other than scamming? I’m asking because I genuinely don’t know.

by _lvbh 2y ago

Beyond a certain level of quality, what is the purpose of improving similarity with human voice other than scamming? I’m asking because I genuinely don’t know. It seems even a rudimentary TTS is usable as long as you can tell what it’s saying.

edvards 2y ago
In voice assistants, robocalls, e-books, even singing, live voice interpretation/translation... a lot of stuff.
- _lvbh 2y ago
  Voice assistants -> Siri sounds just fine Robocalls -> I want to know I’m speaking to a robot Audio books -> reasonable. An accurate tone is pleasant Singing -> ever heard of vocaloids? They’ve existed for at least a decade or two
  - Ukv 2y ago
    > Singing -> ever heard of vocaloids? They’ve existed for at least a decade or two That it was technically already possible does not mean there isn't benefit from improved quality. In fact, Vocaloid itself has been improving and now uses AI. Would also add making movies, podcasts, news broadcasts, etc. available automatically in a huge range of languages. You wouldn't want movies dubbed by Microsoft Sam (beyond initial comedic effect).
    - miki123211 2y ago
      > You wouldn't want movies dubbed by Microsoft Sam (beyond initial comedic effect). You'd be surprised how common something like this used to be in Poland, though admittedly we used an Ivona voice for this, which was a lot more pleasant. Having a single narrator narrate the entire movie, overlaying the original audio track, is already common here, much more so than dubbing or subtitles. This is for historic reasons, in the communist era, obtaining the raw audio tracks for dubbing was often impossible, all the translators often had was a normal copy of the movie in its original language. In the early 2000's, we had a lot of early / unofficial pirate releases, and they had to be translated into Polish somehow. Subtitles were certainly one method, but as we're all used to the single-narrator style, many people didn't mind listening to a somewhat decent synthetic voice instead.
  - kthartic 2y ago
    Games -> AI-powered characters that interact with you in realtime Commercials/tutorials/corporate training videos -> Voiceover work TV shows -> Dubbing in various languages Fast food drive-throughs -> Taking customer orders
- lupusreal 2y ago
  > robocalls E.g. scamming. For anything that is just about conveying information through audio, like voice assistants, traditional TTS already works fine.
qwertox 2y ago
This is why I don't get why OpenAI doesn't open source their TTS. I've read that it is because of the risk of misuse, but if they release it with only two voices, one male and one female voice, and ensure that these voices are recognizable AI voices (in the sense of popular), there shouldn't be any risk? Most of us just need a machine to have the ability to speak to us in a way that sounds halfway human, but not as horrible as old open source TTS systems.
- follower 2y ago
  Would you settle for as "horrible" as new open source TTS systems? :D My current go to is Piper TTS: https://github.com/rhasspy/piper https://github.com/rhasspy/piper It's MIT-licensed, supports ~30 languages and multiple voices[0]/quality/licenses. Voice output samples: https://rhasspy.github.io/piper-samples/ https://rhasspy.github.io/piper-samples/ Discovered just now that recently there's also been some efforts to train Public Domain/CC-BY licensed voices specifically for Piper TTS too: https://brycebeattie.com/files/tts/ https://brycebeattie.com/files/tts/ ---- footnotes ---- [0] e.g. One of the English voice sets has ~900 voices(!).
  - doubloon 2y ago
    i do find that this Piper project is really amazing. however if i am going to listen to 3 hours of audiobook, i would still pay for a better TTS versus Piper. (now i buy a lot of audiobooks read by voice actors but not every book i want to audio-read has a market to support a voice actor being paid to read it) however Piper is definitely going in the correct direction though, huge progress.
kebsup 2y ago
I'm always on a lookout for the best TTS for my language learning app.
throwthrowuknow 2y ago
I don’t use any TTS at the moment because they all sound weird and it’s distracting when random words or phrases are mispronounced or have odd intonations or misplaced stresses. I would use it a lot more if it sounded entirely natural, I know this because I listen to a lot of audiobooks and podcasts.
rawrawrawrr 2y ago
Video games, for one.
txdm 2y ago
Narration of marketing or educational materials without hiring voice talent. For instance, if an independent developer wants to create a short video that explains key features of their software project. The voice should sound natural enough that the listener doesn't get distracted questioning whether it is real or hear silly mispronunciations.
miki123211 2y ago
Restoring the voices of people who have lost their ability to speak is one, making audiobooks much cheaper and more widely available, particularly for languages where they're far more rare than in English is another. Overall, this tech is a boon for the disability community.
follower 2y ago
My interest in TTS is around "indie" game creation, animation and "radio plays". A couple of years ago I started development of a tool to help with the generation of game audio such as NPC dialogue, "barks" or narration for those without access to/budget for human voice actors: https://rancidbacon.itch.io/dialogue-tool-for-larynx-text-to-speech https://rancidbacon.itch.io/dialogue-tool-for-larynx-text-to... One thing I found interesting is that writing a small "scene" and then hearing dialogue being spoken by a variety of voices often prompted the writing of further lines of dialogue in response to perceived emotion contained in voices in the generated output. Plus it was just fun. :) The version of the tool on that page is based on Larynx TTS which has continued development more recently as Piper TTS: https://github.com/rhasspy/piper https://github.com/rhasspy/piper I'm yet to publish my port which uses Piper TTS though: https://gitlab.com/RancidBacon/larynx-dialogue/-/tree/feature-piper-port https://gitlab.com/RancidBacon/larynx-dialogue/-/tree/featur... Though I did upload some sample output (including some "radio announcer" samples in response to a HN comment :) ): https://rancidbacon.gitlab.io/piper-tts-demos/ https://rancidbacon.gitlab.io/piper-tts-demos/ Obviously there's variations in voice quality, and ability to control expression is currently limited but beats hearing my own voice. :D

by _lvbh 2y ago

edvards 2y ago

In voice assistants, robocalls, e-books, even singing, live voice interpretation/translation... a lot of stuff.

_lvbh 2y ago
Voice assistants -> Siri sounds just fine Robocalls -> I want to know I’m speaking to a robot Audio books -> reasonable. An accurate tone is pleasant Singing -> ever heard of vocaloids? They’ve existed for at least a decade or two
- Ukv 2y ago
  > Singing -> ever heard of vocaloids? They’ve existed for at least a decade or two That it was technically already possible does not mean there isn't benefit from improved quality. In fact, Vocaloid itself has been improving and now uses AI. Would also add making movies, podcasts, news broadcasts, etc. available automatically in a huge range of languages. You wouldn't want movies dubbed by Microsoft Sam (beyond initial comedic effect).
  - miki123211 2y ago
    > You wouldn't want movies dubbed by Microsoft Sam (beyond initial comedic effect). You'd be surprised how common something like this used to be in Poland, though admittedly we used an Ivona voice for this, which was a lot more pleasant. Having a single narrator narrate the entire movie, overlaying the original audio track, is already common here, much more so than dubbing or subtitles. This is for historic reasons, in the communist era, obtaining the raw audio tracks for dubbing was often impossible, all the translators often had was a normal copy of the movie in its original language. In the early 2000's, we had a lot of early / unofficial pirate releases, and they had to be translated into Polish somehow. Subtitles were certainly one method, but as we're all used to the single-narrator style, many people didn't mind listening to a somewhat decent synthetic voice instead.
- kthartic 2y ago
  Games -> AI-powered characters that interact with you in realtime Commercials/tutorials/corporate training videos -> Voiceover work TV shows -> Dubbing in various languages Fast food drive-throughs -> Taking customer orders
lupusreal 2y ago
> robocalls E.g. scamming. For anything that is just about conveying information through audio, like voice assistants, traditional TTS already works fine.

qwertox 2y ago

This is why I don't get why OpenAI doesn't open source their TTS. I've read that it is because of the risk of misuse, but if they release it with only two voices, one male and one female voice, and ensure that these voices are recognizable AI voices (in the sense of popular), there shouldn't be any risk? Most of us just need a machine to have the ability to speak to us in a way that sounds halfway human, but not as horrible as old open source TTS systems.

follower 2y ago
Would you settle for as "horrible" as new open source TTS systems? :D My current go to is Piper TTS: https://github.com/rhasspy/piper https://github.com/rhasspy/piper It's MIT-licensed, supports ~30 languages and multiple voices[0]/quality/licenses. Voice output samples: https://rhasspy.github.io/piper-samples/ https://rhasspy.github.io/piper-samples/ Discovered just now that recently there's also been some efforts to train Public Domain/CC-BY licensed voices specifically for Piper TTS too: https://brycebeattie.com/files/tts/ https://brycebeattie.com/files/tts/ ---- footnotes ---- [0] e.g. One of the English voice sets has ~900 voices(!).
- doubloon 2y ago
  i do find that this Piper project is really amazing. however if i am going to listen to 3 hours of audiobook, i would still pay for a better TTS versus Piper. (now i buy a lot of audiobooks read by voice actors but not every book i want to audio-read has a market to support a voice actor being paid to read it) however Piper is definitely going in the correct direction though, huge progress.

kebsup 2y ago

I'm always on a lookout for the best TTS for my language learning app.

throwthrowuknow 2y ago

I don’t use any TTS at the moment because they all sound weird and it’s distracting when random words or phrases are mispronounced or have odd intonations or misplaced stresses. I would use it a lot more if it sounded entirely natural, I know this because I listen to a lot of audiobooks and podcasts.

rawrawrawrr 2y ago

Video games, for one.

txdm 2y ago

Narration of marketing or educational materials without hiring voice talent. For instance, if an independent developer wants to create a short video that explains key features of their software project. The voice should sound natural enough that the listener doesn't get distracted questioning whether it is real or hear silly mispronunciations.

miki123211 2y ago

Restoring the voices of people who have lost their ability to speak is one, making audiobooks much cheaper and more widely available, particularly for languages where they're far more rare than in English is another. Overall, this tech is a boon for the disability community.

follower 2y ago

My interest in TTS is around "indie" game creation, animation and "radio plays". A couple of years ago I started development of a tool to help with the generation of game audio such as NPC dialogue, "barks" or narration for those without access to/budget for human voice actors: https://rancidbacon.itch.io/dialogue-tool-for-larynx-text-to-speech https://rancidbacon.itch.io/dialogue-tool-for-larynx-text-to... One thing I found interesting is that writing a small "scene" and then hearing dialogue being spoken by a variety of voices often prompted the writing of further lines of dialogue in response to perceived emotion contained in voices in the generated output. Plus it was just fun. :) The version of the tool on that page is based on Larynx TTS which has continued development more recently as Piper TTS: https://github.com/rhasspy/piper https://github.com/rhasspy/piper I'm yet to publish my port which uses Piper TTS though: https://gitlab.com/RancidBacon/larynx-dialogue/-/tree/feature-piper-port https://gitlab.com/RancidBacon/larynx-dialogue/-/tree/featur... Though I did upload some sample output (including some "radio announcer" samples in response to a HN comment :) ): https://rancidbacon.gitlab.io/piper-tts-demos/ https://rancidbacon.gitlab.io/piper-tts-demos/ Obviously there's variations in voice quality, and ability to control expression is currently limited but beats hearing my own voice. :D