Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Launch HN: Play.ht (YC W23) – Generate and clone voices from 20 seconds of audio

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 471 posts

Re: Launch HN: Play.ht (YC W23) – Generate and clone voices from 20 seconds of audio

#171

Post by mugr »

jeroenhd wrote: post #54

Listening to the demos I'm not entirely convinced by this ( https://playground.play.ht/listen/189 was pretty funny). I wonder if this company will end up taking down (and subsequently pricing out most people using this tech for fun) arbitrary voice generation just like its competitors have so far. Going to the demo page and hearing a random snippet of Musk-worship was pretty weird. Out of all audio tracks to place at…

Wow, I call to the team behind this. I really STRONGLY think you should at least implement some sort of URL stealthing. I'm not a Web Security expert, but it reminds me of a talk where some company just made medical records 'public' like this.

Re: Launch HN: Play.ht (YC W23) – Generate and clone voices from 20 seconds of audio

#173

Post by yreg »

abirch wrote: post #134
Dowwie wrote: post #118

I recommend you immediately add identity verification (state-issued identification verification), set up appropriate secrets store for PII, and audit trail EVERYTHING your users are doing, storing the contents in a secure location. Yesterday. This service will be used to harm others, shortly. I do think that there are exciting, honest things that can be done with this service but you need to set up some friction for…

I'm imagining the legal implications though I'm not a lawyer. If granny gets ripped off by someone impersonating me with this site, seems like Granny could sue Play.ht. Play.ht will want to have as much information as possible about their users.

How would granny prove the scammer used play.ht?

Re: Launch HN: Play.ht (YC W23) – Generate and clone voices from 20 seconds of audio

#174

Post by kossTKR »

krashidov wrote: post #95
phkahler wrote: post #18

This is the first startup here where I think the tech should essentially be illegal. It's cool tech, yes I'm impressed at the achievement. Nuclear weapons are impressive too. OTOH this kind of thing is getting easier and easier to do, so what's a realistic way forward?

Serious question. What is the difference in implications between this and a professional voice impersonator? I don't think it's as dangerous as we think it is. All of the consequences that Play.ht bring to society are already possible today and have been for some time. The difference is that it will be easier, but I don't think that makes it any more dangerous.

Scaling + ease of use.

Compare:

1) Use lots of time to find person who can impersonate specific other person. Unless you give them a lot of money or threats to shut up you can't use them to real time decieve someone.

2) Clone 1 million voices from tiktok in 1 minute. Contact 10 million relatives with a synth voice that is intelligent enough to answer questions.

We will have billions of AI's, containers, programs, agents running around trying to deceive absolutely everyone and their grandmother 24/7 soon.

Re: Launch HN: Play.ht (YC W23) – Generate and clone voices from 20 seconds of audio

#175

Post by alexb_ »

It's astounding to me how quickly HN turned into "We need to track people who use technology in case they use it for crime" when it comes to this. No we don't! Technology does not need to be relentlessly tracked by government agencies "for your protection" - haven't you learned anything?

Re: Launch HN: Play.ht (YC W23) – Generate and clone voices from 20 seconds of audio

#176

Post by yreg »

rgrieselhuber wrote: post #84
phkahler wrote: post #18

This is the first startup here where I think the tech should essentially be illegal. It's cool tech, yes I'm impressed at the achievement. Nuclear weapons are impressive too. OTOH this kind of thing is getting easier and easier to do, so what's a realistic way forward?

We're getting to the point where all voice conversations will need to be authenticated via OTP, even between family members, on the phone. Especially for banking, etc.

Voice conversations on FaceTime, WhatsApp, etc. are already authenticated. Perhaps it's time to stop using non-VoIP calls?

Re: Launch HN: Play.ht (YC W23) – Generate and clone voices from 20 seconds of audio

#177

Post by mugr »

I don't know about you, but I just listen to all the uploads from everyone uploading stuff there at https://playground.play.ht/listen/$tracknumber and also download all of them with the nice download button provided (I don't). But it would be really nice to have these credible (after some editing) recordings of senior officials saying all sorts of politically incorrect things.

Re: Launch HN: Play.ht (YC W23) – Generate and clone voices from 20 seconds of audio

#178

Post by Avicebron »

hammadh wrote: post #159
abirch wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm imagining the legal implications though I'm not a lawyer. If granny gets ripped off by someone impersonating me with this site, seems like Granny could sue Play.ht. Play.ht will want to have as much information as possible about their users.

You are right, and unfortunately that is a possibility, and we are working on having measure in place to guard against such attempts. We have auto moderation on the input text that will block such audio being generated. Such users are flagged in the system.

What are you filtering for in the input text that would block something like a phone scam?

Re: Launch HN: Play.ht (YC W23) – Generate and clone voices from 20 seconds of audio

#180

Post by rgrieselhuber »

yreg wrote: post #176
rgrieselhuber wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're getting to the point where all voice conversations will need to be authenticated via OTP, even between family members, on the phone. Especially for banking, etc.

Voice conversations on FaceTime, WhatsApp, etc. are already authenticated. Perhaps it's time to stop using non-VoIP calls?

Can you call your bank with that?
Post reply on HN