4 ms·

Made in California. next question

by swyx 2y ago

carabiner 2y ago
Made in California? Next question?
- barbazoo 2y ago
  Made in California! Next question!
ryandrake 2y ago
I wish it were only a California thing. The Valley Girl uptalk/vocal fry thing seems to have spread across the country. Turn on the local news station in any region of the country and you'll hear it. Everyone is for some reason trying to sound like the Real Housewives Of Orange County.
- alabastervlog 2y ago
  NPR's even been full of it for more than a decade now. I think at some point (the '00s?) they really relaxed their elocution standards for hosts & reporters. It definitely makes reporting feel trustworthy and serious? When almost every statement sounds like a tentative question?
- TRiG_Ireland 2y ago
  "Vocal fry" is not really a thing, as David Peterson explains. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIJyEc07w2Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIJyEc07w2Q
  - PaulHoule 2y ago
    I like vocal fry as a vocal adjustment because (1) you can do it with no talent, and (2) since it is atonal you can use it and have no risk of your vocal tone slipping upward because you're under stress.
breckinloggins 2y ago
This a highly problematic comment? /s
- uoaei 2y ago
  What are you getting at? What's the joke?
orblivion 2y ago
In San Francisco I had a coworker originally from Italy who used upspeak while speaking in an Italian accent.
- hbarka 2y ago
  How did they manage that? The Italian accent is beautifully affirmative and confidently downspeak when making a statement.
hbarka 2y ago
There’s no shortage of YouTube videos aware of the uptalk or upspeak annoyances but I found this one from 1994. It seems to have spread from California Valleygirl-speak and then nationwide to college campuses. How does LLM training get influenced (weighted) by pop culture speaking styles? https://youtu.be/z756L_CkakU https://youtu.be/z756L_CkakU
- swyx 2y ago
  pretrain data + rlhf
saltcured 2y ago
More like trained by a certain generation and socioeconomic strata... I've gotten old enough to now wonder if my dialect sounds like something from another world and era to younger folks in my region. The way I felt about most of the Hollywood actors I heard from before technicolor was the norm.
nottorp 2y ago
Oh cmon. Californians are too expensive for training AI. Maybe it's from some malaysian accent?
- muzani 2y ago
  Malaysian here. Uptalk is used more to turn a sentence into a suggestion. Something like "Hey, there's one dim sum left," to suggest that I'm taking this but you can challenge it. I could see why ChatGPT would adopt it. It's trying to be polite. Often it's in a tonal particle, "One dim sum left meh." But it's possible in trying to artificially combine tone and text, the uptalk is moved up. But the tell tones of a Malaysian accent is it's clipped. Instead of "I don't like that idea," it becomes "Don't like it." ChatGPT may be written American, so as an accent, it would sound closer to, "I- don't like, that idea." And sentences often end in an elongated manner, "I wrote that is essay you wanted~". The elongated ends are quite common in many SEA accents as well, especially Thai.
  - nottorp 2y ago
    Oh sorry. Didn't mean to pick on malaysians specifically. I was just pointing out training would be outsourced to somewhere. Like ChatGPT's written english is or was close to nigerian business english...
    - muzani 2y ago
      No offense taken. It got me curious. I actually do train AI to code in Singaporean English in my spare time, so I try to be aware, lol. I'm not aware of voice training though. x.AI outsources lots of stuff to Malaysia. Google has some, but has had this data like for TTS, STT, and Google Translate, for a decade or so.
- wongarsu 2y ago
  Unless you train on twitch streamers. There seems to be an unspoken rule that any successful streamer has to move to LA. If you train on youtubers you get a surprising Mormon bias instead. I would be surprised if the majority of the training data is licensed from the speakers.

Made in California. next question

by swyx 2y ago

Made in California. next question

carabiner 2y ago

Made in California? Next question?

barbazoo 2y ago
Made in California! Next question!

ryandrake 2y ago

I wish it were only a California thing. The Valley Girl uptalk/vocal fry thing seems to have spread across the country. Turn on the local news station in any region of the country and you'll hear it. Everyone is for some reason trying to sound like the Real Housewives Of Orange County.

alabastervlog 2y ago
NPR's even been full of it for more than a decade now. I think at some point (the '00s?) they really relaxed their elocution standards for hosts & reporters. It definitely makes reporting feel trustworthy and serious? When almost every statement sounds like a tentative question?
TRiG_Ireland 2y ago
"Vocal fry" is not really a thing, as David Peterson explains. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIJyEc07w2Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIJyEc07w2Q
- PaulHoule 2y ago
  I like vocal fry as a vocal adjustment because (1) you can do it with no talent, and (2) since it is atonal you can use it and have no risk of your vocal tone slipping upward because you're under stress.

breckinloggins 2y ago

This a highly problematic comment? /s

uoaei 2y ago
What are you getting at? What's the joke?

orblivion 2y ago

In San Francisco I had a coworker originally from Italy who used upspeak while speaking in an Italian accent.

hbarka 2y ago
How did they manage that? The Italian accent is beautifully affirmative and confidently downspeak when making a statement.

hbarka 2y ago

There’s no shortage of YouTube videos aware of the uptalk or upspeak annoyances but I found this one from 1994. It seems to have spread from California Valleygirl-speak and then nationwide to college campuses. How does LLM training get influenced (weighted) by pop culture speaking styles? https://youtu.be/z756L_CkakU https://youtu.be/z756L_CkakU

swyx 2y ago
pretrain data + rlhf

saltcured 2y ago

More like trained by a certain generation and socioeconomic strata... I've gotten old enough to now wonder if my dialect sounds like something from another world and era to younger folks in my region. The way I felt about most of the Hollywood actors I heard from before technicolor was the norm.

nottorp 2y ago

Oh cmon. Californians are too expensive for training AI. Maybe it's from some malaysian accent?

muzani 2y ago
Malaysian here. Uptalk is used more to turn a sentence into a suggestion. Something like "Hey, there's one dim sum left," to suggest that I'm taking this but you can challenge it. I could see why ChatGPT would adopt it. It's trying to be polite. Often it's in a tonal particle, "One dim sum left meh." But it's possible in trying to artificially combine tone and text, the uptalk is moved up. But the tell tones of a Malaysian accent is it's clipped. Instead of "I don't like that idea," it becomes "Don't like it." ChatGPT may be written American, so as an accent, it would sound closer to, "I- don't like, that idea." And sentences often end in an elongated manner, "I wrote that is essay you wanted~". The elongated ends are quite common in many SEA accents as well, especially Thai.
- nottorp 2y ago
  Oh sorry. Didn't mean to pick on malaysians specifically. I was just pointing out training would be outsourced to somewhere. Like ChatGPT's written english is or was close to nigerian business english...
  - muzani 2y ago
    No offense taken. It got me curious. I actually do train AI to code in Singaporean English in my spare time, so I try to be aware, lol. I'm not aware of voice training though. x.AI outsources lots of stuff to Malaysia. Google has some, but has had this data like for TTS, STT, and Google Translate, for a decade or so.
wongarsu 2y ago
Unless you train on twitch streamers. There seems to be an unspoken rule that any successful streamer has to move to LA. If you train on youtubers you get a surprising Mormon bias instead. I would be surprised if the majority of the training data is licensed from the speakers.