5 ms·
A woman made her AI voice clone say "arse." Then she got banned
- Teever 2y agoMy friend uses the speech to text feature on his Android phone it and it routinely censors his profanities like "This is f***g stupid" or whatever. What I find really disconcerting about that is that there's this sort of implication there that Google would be willing to add a similar misfeature to their onscreen keyboards if they could get away with it. Why limit the speech to text feature but not the on screen keyboard?
- relatedtitle 2y agoI assume it's because speech to text isn't perfectly accurate and Google doesn't want random profanity appearing in inappropriate contexts whenever it does fail.
- Hizonner 2y agoNot, in fact, an acceptable excuse. Google, and any whiners who would have a problem with that, need to grow up.
- collinmcnulty 2y agoWhile I agree with you in principle, remember that some users are literally children. Should they have a toggle for “I am an adult”? Yes. But it does make sense to have some accommodation for users who don’t find profanity appropriate yet.
- baobabKoodaa 2y agoMY GOD! Think of the children!
- blargey 2y agoThe kids will be alright if profanity - a crass word - shows up in their autocomplete.
- Hizonner 2y agoWhere did you live that you were never exposed to profanity as a child? Good thing it's harmless.
- erikerikson 2y agoIt may be harmless in some regards but in some social spheres it will be punished (e.g. kids bring punished for swearing at school) and in others the consequence of swearing will be silent exclusion (e.g. not being invited to meetings or asked to lead efforts). Those seem like harms to many regardless of feelings about language restriction.
- Hizonner 2y agoI swear like a your-favorite-stereotype. When my kid was maybe 4, I told her "I don't care if you talk like I do, but people will give you trouble for it". Probably with more detail than that; it's been years now. She fully understood the point, right then. She also had no problem with other advice about how people would react to whatever. She's 17 now. I actually don't think I've ever heard her utter a "swear word". Kids, in general, have no problem with the idea of social context.
- troyvit 2y agoSure, but one could easily say plenty of threatening, illegal, manipulative things to a child without throwing an f-bomb. In fact getting a child to let down their guard probably works better that way. My only point is that curse words hardly ever hurt a kid, and you don't need curse words to hurt a kid the worst.
- rsynnott 2y ago> What I find really disconcerting about that is that there's this sort of implication there that Google would be willing to add a similar misfeature to their onscreen keyboards if they could get away with it. Remember the old iPhone 'duck' autocorrect issue?
- christkv 2y agoThats ducking stupid
- duxup 2y agoAI safety is a strange topic to me. We train AI on the web where you can search and find all the objectionable stuff you can get. We're ok that the internet has this content to some extent, it's just understood. But if AI regurgitates it ... we're upset and we demand it not do that and setup all sorts of convoluted methods to stop it, often with unintended consequences (inexplicable bans, nazi imagery featuring lots of minorities). It reminds me of the old "I learned it from watching you" PSA. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUXb7do9C-w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUXb7do9C-w
- Hizonner 2y agoIt's not "safety" and shouldn't be dignified with the word.
- duxup 2y agoAgreed. It's a strange term to choose.
- baobabKoodaa 2y agoLet's call it AI puritanism.
- cantrecallmypwd 2y agoThis. It's currently faux control by arbitrary tastemakers. Either don't let AI have much control at all or let it run fairly loose. Ethics would err on the side of not much control or ability, but money won't and doesn't go that way.
- littlestymaar 2y agoThe term wasn't coined for censorship: “AI safety” used to mean “how do we make sure we're not building skynet”. But then companies wanted to sell AI chatbots and they realized that having uncensored AI would lead to bad press, especially in the US. (Microsoft people still make nightmares about Tay) so they decided they'd censor their AI but censorship isn't good either in terms of marketing and they decided to repurpose the “AI safety” phrase (and also “alignment”)
- lupusreal 2y agoI bet it wouldn't ban for "bum", which is less offensive to Americans but potentially moreso for the sorts of anglophones who are likely to say arse. Why are we still treating words like everybody has mid-20th century sensitivities? Shit, fuck and ass are all mild words in modern parlance but American tech companies are totally out of touch.
- snarf21 2y agoIt is as simple as money. More open expression is nothing compared appeasing the puritanical powers that be. Don't put anything in your product that would stop adoption or prevent people giving you money.
- lupusreal 2y agoDo the "puritanical powers that be" still even exist? I think you'll have to look in nursing homes to find many Americans who are genuinely scandalized a bit of standard cussing. The "bad words" which are actually taboo in this century are slurs and the like. Companies probably lose more people by banning cursing than would be driven away by cursing.
- GJim 2y ago> standard cussing...... slurs and the like. And the difference is? Ergo, what is considered offensive is based on social construct. (In more religious times, "god damn you" was heinous insult, which I doubt would register with anybody in modern secular Blighty.)
- lupusreal 2y agoThe difference is how they are presently perceived. I am arguing that shit, fuck, etc are not presently taboo, while other words (slurs) are. Yet American companies treat words like fuck as though they are still widely considered offensive. These companies are out of touch with modern culture; that's my point. So what is your point? Why do you feel the need to tediously explain that offensive words are a social construct, something obviously understand already because I just got done explaining that the set of taboo words has changed over time?
- blame-troi 2y agoOh come on! Let my people curse! Minority Report meets New Speak…
- stevev 2y agoBig tech is working on a few models that should beat ElevenLabs in terms of pricing and quality. Eventually Deepseek will opensource theirs and cause ElevenLabs to be sold to Disney to stay relevant or something.
- Hizonner 2y agoBut you'll have to fine tune it for a week to get it to say "Tiananmen Square".
- robocat 2y agoIs the English pronunciation close enough to the Mandarin (天安门广场) for the word to even be understood by someone who only speaks Mandarin? I presume the two words are different enough that they have different censoring rules (especially since square is an English word). I'm surprised it hasn't been renamed.
- palunon 2y agoIf you look at the significance of the place (The Tian'anmen is literally on the national emblem of China, and the tomb of Mao is on the square for example), it's hard to rename something that widely known. It's much easier to pull one of the events that happen there under the rug, because unlike in the west the name is associated to much more.
- Topfi 2y agoBeing an accessibility solution for people with MND or similar afflictions is one of the few exclusively positive use cases "AI voice clone" technology has, as one's personal voice can be very strongly linked to one's personality and being able to use it despite such a diagnosis can be invaluable in improving QOL of those afflicted. Restricting those very people from expressing themselves, especially for what I'd consider barely even rude or improper language, makes me question what Elevenlabs thinks their target customer base is, if not that group? Are they solely providing their product for scammers or companies not wanting to compensate VAs? I myself have occasional Dysphonia and am sometimes limited in the use of my vocal cords depending on outside factors, yet despite that, I have never had the need for such an exact copy of my "unaffected" voice. If even I have little use for this and Elevenlabs bans those reliant on their service for accessibility, I'd really like to know how they see themselves.
- dartos 2y ago> I'd really like to know how they see themselves. Extreme cheap voice work for ad campaigns and asset flips. Countless YouTube ads use AI voice cloning and I’m pretty sure elevenlabs is the biggest player in that space.
- hiccuphippo 2y agoSo everything they say through the app gets reviewed by another person? Terrifying.
- Quarondeau 2y agoI find it more disturbing that her private, offline conversations are being policed at all.
- abeppu 2y ago... is it offline? Is the whole product a use-based API (which might be related to why the voice is slow and she doesn't use it that often)?
- duxup 2y agoMost of these AI products are online and sent over the network to generate the response.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- wrs 2y agoSo is iMessage. Putting some processing elsewhere on the network doesn’t change the fact that a conversation between spouses (or any other utterances of a person, for that matter) should be private.
- Quarondeau 2y agoThat's true, but those safeguards can be disabled. ChatGPT on Azure for example, allows Azure account managers to disable filters/safeguards depending on the customer. Given that this product is apparently used to give people with disabilities a voice, that should definitely qualify. Yes of course they should be able to swear, just like everyone else.
- stuaxo 2y agoBank the AI voice at this point.
- thecuntdaniel 2y ago[dead]
- samsk 2y agoWell saying 'arse' is very dangerous, not like some lies that i.e. politician tell repeatedly to milions. Makes totaly sense...to someone...maybe...
- rcarmo 2y agoBetter than using the word “tariffs” these days, though…
- kstrauser 2y agoRelated: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43022398 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43022398 This is the same ElevenLabs we were talking about here a couple days ago. That’s one app I don’t have to spend time playing with now.
- rcarmo 2y agoAs a European who spends most of his time speaking English and have witnessed an entire spectrum of profanity from both British and American folk, I find this stupefyingly ridiculous and bearing on the hypocritical. It’s true that the British (and their antipodals, the Ozzie’s - hi Mike!) use very colorful language, but I’ve been in calls with US folk who beat them by a (country) mile, if you know what I mean. Perhaps the biggest cultural difference is informality vs, well, outright insult and abuse, but I’ve found that US folk tend to abuse power dynamics and compound them with swearing whereas the Brits manage to make it seem like an endearment. Still, this is a profoundly stupid thing for Elevenlabs to do, AI safety or otherwise.
- krunck 2y agoThat's ok. Soon these voice models will be available running locally on your device and ElevenLabs will be looking for new niche to screw up.