Stephen Fry spoke at the CogX Festival in London last week. During that talk, he played a video clip of a WOII documentary narrated by his voice. The voice heard in the clip is in fact not his — it’s a clone of his voice, trained on seven Harry Potter audio books that he patiently and painstakingly has narrated in the past. The cloned voice was then used to narrate the documentary without Fry’s knowledge, or permission.
Very interesting read. Fascinating how a person's voice is not explicitly covered as biometric data under GDPR, yet it is such a central part to anyone's identity.
Thanks for your thoughtful reflection on this important topic. Well done. I just recommended your blog to my visitors.
To me, the lessons here seem clear. If we're going to create technologies of vast scale such as AI, then we are no longer in the driver's seat. We are along for the ride, where ever it may take us, like it or not.
Imagine that you got on a bus in Peru, and the bus began it's journey down twisting and turning mountain roads over looking the deep cliffs on every side. The bus may take you to beautiful locations filled with beautiful people, or it may go over a cliff. Once you're on that bus speeding down the mountain road you can't get off, and just have to accept whatever fate awaits you, for the better and the worse.
It's only a matter of time until average users will be able to easily create fake videos which can't be distinguished from the real people and events. All media will lose credibility, as there will be no way to know what is real, and what is not.
The whole thing has been a bad idea right from the start. But it's going to happen anyway. Like everyone else, I'm a passenger on the bus and can't get off. And so while we travel down the mountain road together, I'm going to have some fun with it, as there is no other rational choice available.
Maybe we'll get lucky. Maybe we won't. It's out of our hands at this point.
Thanks for your reply and the recommendation, much appreciated. It's going to be a bumpy ride, for sure. There is a huge task and challenge for journalists and online media to be even more vigilant and provide real-time, accurate reporting. Hopefully people will turn more to credible sources, not less.
"...readily available voice cloning technology is something we cannot contain". No room for optimism here. This technology has the potential to undermine the very fabric of society, by destroying trust in all forms of electronic or broadcast communication. Never mind ineffective "regulation"... from fraud to geopolitical disruption, whenever or wherever discovered malevolent abuse of voice cloning will need to be made a criminal offence per se, with severe penalties and cross-border enforcement for there to be any chance whatsoever of containment.
Thanks for your reply, Paul! I foresee major challenges in enforcement if we were to deem cloning someone's voice a criminal offense, but I agree with your sentiment.
Challenging, but possible if we treat the human voice in a similar way to other owned entities that can be forged or faked like a banknote or old masters painting.
Very interesting read. Fascinating how a person's voice is not explicitly covered as biometric data under GDPR, yet it is such a central part to anyone's identity.
Thanks for your thoughtful reflection on this important topic. Well done. I just recommended your blog to my visitors.
To me, the lessons here seem clear. If we're going to create technologies of vast scale such as AI, then we are no longer in the driver's seat. We are along for the ride, where ever it may take us, like it or not.
Imagine that you got on a bus in Peru, and the bus began it's journey down twisting and turning mountain roads over looking the deep cliffs on every side. The bus may take you to beautiful locations filled with beautiful people, or it may go over a cliff. Once you're on that bus speeding down the mountain road you can't get off, and just have to accept whatever fate awaits you, for the better and the worse.
It's only a matter of time until average users will be able to easily create fake videos which can't be distinguished from the real people and events. All media will lose credibility, as there will be no way to know what is real, and what is not.
The whole thing has been a bad idea right from the start. But it's going to happen anyway. Like everyone else, I'm a passenger on the bus and can't get off. And so while we travel down the mountain road together, I'm going to have some fun with it, as there is no other rational choice available.
Maybe we'll get lucky. Maybe we won't. It's out of our hands at this point.
Thanks for your reply and the recommendation, much appreciated. It's going to be a bumpy ride, for sure. There is a huge task and challenge for journalists and online media to be even more vigilant and provide real-time, accurate reporting. Hopefully people will turn more to credible sources, not less.
How will we know which are the credible sources? How will we know which are the human sources?
"...readily available voice cloning technology is something we cannot contain". No room for optimism here. This technology has the potential to undermine the very fabric of society, by destroying trust in all forms of electronic or broadcast communication. Never mind ineffective "regulation"... from fraud to geopolitical disruption, whenever or wherever discovered malevolent abuse of voice cloning will need to be made a criminal offence per se, with severe penalties and cross-border enforcement for there to be any chance whatsoever of containment.
Thanks for your reply, Paul! I foresee major challenges in enforcement if we were to deem cloning someone's voice a criminal offense, but I agree with your sentiment.
Challenging, but possible if we treat the human voice in a similar way to other owned entities that can be forged or faked like a banknote or old masters painting.