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

news.ycombinator.com

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

#351

Post by CJefferson »

rockemsockem wrote: post #345
anoy8888 wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moral is the last thing YC cared about . In fact Paul wrote an essay about good founders being the kind of people who tend to break rules. Rules, laws , morality are for other people

I feel silly for saying this, but it's very obvious that rule breaking is not the same as acting immorally. Machines should be able to speak in realistic voices. Every cool future I can imagine includes that. Why muzzle it just because people can be scammed with it?? People get scammed by jpgs, random people calling and saying they're from the bank or the IRS. I'm really not interested in limiting what humanity can a…

My problem isn't computers speaking in realistic voices. The problem is speaking in your voice, or my voice.

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

#354

Post by mr_woozy »

anoy8888 wrote: post #337
gwerbret wrote: post #319

Given the very ( very , VERY) obvious concerns associated with malicious deployment of this tech, and the minimal/largely ineffectual countermeasures deployed by the founders, what surprises me the most is that YC gave this startup its stamp of approval. It used to be that they offered at least a basic sanity check to anything they funded. Is this now getting lost as they scale up their funding operations?

Moral is the last thing YC cared about . In fact Paul wrote an essay about good founders being the kind of people who tend to break rules. Rules, laws , morality are for other people

[dead]

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

#355

Post by kybernetyk »

gwerbret wrote: post #319

Given the very ( very , VERY) obvious concerns associated with malicious deployment of this tech, and the minimal/largely ineffectual countermeasures deployed by the founders, what surprises me the most is that YC gave this startup its stamp of approval. It used to be that they offered at least a basic sanity check to anything they funded. Is this now getting lost as they scale up their funding operations?

I don’t want to topple US democracy. I just want to make walk through videos for my apps without my terrible accent coming through :)

So thanks for funding this.

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

#356

Post by rcme »

gwerbret wrote: post #319

Given the very ( very , VERY) obvious concerns associated with malicious deployment of this tech, and the minimal/largely ineffectual countermeasures deployed by the founders, what surprises me the most is that YC gave this startup its stamp of approval. It used to be that they offered at least a basic sanity check to anything they funded. Is this now getting lost as they scale up their funding operations?

The constant worry about malicious deployment is so tired in my opinion. The technology to clone voices exists. Your trust is audio recording should already be shaken. Trying to hobble this product on the grounds of "it's dangerous" just serves to limit creativity.

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

#357

Post by braingenious »

bentlegen wrote: post #302
SirLJ wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree, this sounds awful

It doesn’t matter. Given enough time and progress, it will be indistinguishable.

I mean, it kind of does matter? Since the start of this thread was a post about the imminent threat that play.ht posed, an example of it not appearing very dangerous is on topic.

It’s very possible that some other voice cloning software will be the undoing of the fabric of society, not this particular website.

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

#358

Post by Brendinooo »

mkarliner wrote: post #153

Useless. Try training it on non US voices. I speak English, not American and the generate voice sounded nothing like me. By the way, I was SVP Engineering at a voice modification company.

I speak American English and it gave me some kind of British accent. I have no idea why!

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

#359

Post by kill_nate_kill »

woeirua wrote: post #149

The potential for scamming is limitless with this. Elderly people were vulnerable to phone calls from their "relatives" before when the voices didn't even sound that close. Can you imagine what the hit rate is going to be on these scams when the voices are nearly identical to the voice of their relative? Also, at some point I expect that even answering the phone and saying "Hello" will be enough for some AI model to…

I've started just grunting at phone numbers I don't know for this very reason.

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

#360

Post by newonhere »

eganist wrote: post #348
neilv wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mitigations don't seem to address targeted attacks that I'd think you can assume will happen. How do you address the civil and criminal liability of that?

Are there even any criminal laws against this? I mean, it strikes me that there should be, but my non lawyerly self has never heard of any.

Yes, absolutely. Using one‘s likeness without explicit consent first is illegal in (most of?) Europe and is a tricky subject in the US. For example look at Crispin Glover‘s lawsuit against Back to the Future II.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_rights

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