Putting up our presence online isn’t entirely new. It’s the same thing with people who pretend to be you.
But what if you live in a world where anyone, including you, can easily clone your voice?
As I was exploring ways to do podcast editing efficiently, I came across Pat Flynn talk about an app called Descript. And the thing about this app is that you can type in edits on your transcribed script and let the AI read it with your voice.
Yes, voice cloning can provide convenience in some applications, such as audio editing. But like everything else, which is meant for good, voice cloning also comes with a dark side.
From Everyone will be able to clone their voice in the future:
There are also potential dangers. Fraudsters have already used voice clones to trick companies into moving money into their accounts, and other malicious uses are certainly lurking just beyond the horizon. Imagine, for example, a high school student surreptitiously recording a classmate to create a voice clone of them, then faking audio of that person bad-mouthing a teacher to get them in trouble. If the uses of visual deepfakes are anything to go by, where worries about political misinformation have proven largely misplaced but the technology has done huge damage creating nonconsensual pornography, it’s these sorts of incidents that pose the biggest threats.
jessa 