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Unauthorized "David Attenborough" AI clone narrates developer's life, goes viral

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151–160 of 195 posts

Re: Unauthorized "David Attenborough" AI clone narrates developer's life, goes viral

#151

When I see a lot of this voice replication I am reminded of something. (Dune series spoiler) For example, Duncan Idaho keeps being brought back with cloning tech, over and over, for centuries, because Leto II just likes him. Over and over, the same man keeps being put by the (nearly) immortal emperor's side... I ask: are we stuck as a monoculture, not making new, interesting things, but simply replicating older ones?…

> because Leto II just likes him.

I mean, there's a whole lot more to it than just that. Duncan is a key figure to The Golden Path Leto's breeding program. Without Duncan, the success of creating Siona is hollow. It's their nine daughters and thousand sons who are the human protection from prescience.

Re: Unauthorized "David Attenborough" AI clone narrates developer's life, goes viral

#152
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, their creation is held behind legal walls in order to create, by definition, an artifical scarcity from which it derives its monetary value. If it was not protected by such a wall, and was not scarce, it would have no monetary value. No, I don't think the inherent value in their talent is artificial, but I _do_ think that the monetary system we've built around such things as a necessity to survive in our modern…

>Sure, their creation is held behind legal walls in order to create, by definition, an artifical scarcity from which it derives its monetary value. If it was not protected by such a wall, and was not scarce, it would have no monetary value. That's... not artificial scarcity. By definition (and using your own words) it is actual scarcity. A person's performance -- which is more than just their voice reading lines -- i…

I think what OP is saying is that once AI can replicate these performances (and my coding skills) these things will no longer be scarce. So maybe it's not artificial yet, but it will soon be. Assuming the AI itself doesn't get exclusively owned by companies that implement their own artificial scarcity walls.

Re: Unauthorized "David Attenborough" AI clone narrates developer's life, goes viral

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I ask: are we stuck as a monoculture, not making new, interesting things, but simply replicating older ones? I've been thinking about this a lot lately. It's such an interesting side effect of the streaming era that some of the biggest TV hits with teenagers are Friends and The Office. Not to knock either show but I'm fascinated by what it means for culture.

Content creators now need to compete with the best that's ever been created, not just the best that happens to be broadcast at the same time. This will increase the inequality amongst general purpose evergreen content, the winners will be bigger than ever before and continue to be watched for decades - but getting into that winning bracket will be hard. Conversely it's easier than ever to get views on perishable cont…

Good point, and it mirrors what happened with popular music. Growing up in the 80s, I was almost completely unaware of music from the 50s, and didn't care for what little I'd heard. But plenty of younger people today listen to even-older music from the 60s through the 90s without batting an eye.

We'll see the same thing happen with movies before long. A cynic might say that, for various reasons, the best ones have already been made.

Re: Unauthorized "David Attenborough" AI clone narrates developer's life, goes viral

#154
post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's literally limited by the hours in the day If a textbook isn't available because it's still being written by the author, then true, that's the real scarcity of the author's time. But if a textbook is finished but isn't available because effort is put into preventing the information from being freely shared, then that's artificial scarcity. Restricting access subject to payment is currently the most common metho…

None of that is relevant to this discussion. We are talking about someone who spent time growing a skill and is charging people who want him to use that skill for whatever they are hiring them for.

nurple said: "their creation is held behind legal walls in order to create, by definition, an artifical scarcity from which it derives its monetary value"

In my example "their creation" is a textbook, and "legal walls" would be copyright/DMCA.

There is also Getty/Universal Music/etc. attempting to enforce artificial scarcity in an area where real scarcity existed (in addition to plenty of artificial scarcity) but is beginning to be overcome.

Re: Unauthorized "David Attenborough" AI clone narrates developer's life, goes viral

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Requires a 3 second (!) clip of the voice you want to clone. Sure, if you want a guaranteed uncanny valley experience. There is no way a few seconds are enough to cover all the ways a specific person pronounces things. A person's voice is much more than just the pitch and with a 3 second sample anyone who knows them will be able to tell something's off within 3 seconds.

>anyone who knows them will be able to tell something's off within 3 seconds. Unfortunately the targets of these scammers is usually senile old people. I'm incredibly worried about my parents, especially my bleeding heart mother.

Control her finances. Take away her passwords

Re: Unauthorized "David Attenborough" AI clone narrates developer's life, goes viral

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Teaching people to distrust celebrity endorsements wouldn't be the worst outcome.

There are millions of years of evolution conditioning humans to trust things that are familiar. It's naive to think we'll adapt effectively and quickly to extreme manipulation.

Adapting effectively and quickly is kind of our thing, also backed by millions of years of evolution.

Re: Unauthorized "David Attenborough" AI clone narrates developer's life, goes viral

#157

One area where this kind of technique would be a game changer, I imagine, is for blind people to have their surroundings narrated in real time. For example, through a pair of glasses with a camera for input, and an earphone to listen to the continuous narration. I heard about an online service where people can sign up to help the blind by describing visual scenes that they capture on their mobile. There must be compa…

I know yours is a small comment in a huge sea, but how would the comments know what the blind wanted to see? If I could describe what i can see now it would be a long list left to right. Do i include the sunlight reflecting off an industrial chimney? Is the chimney important? I do enjoy hallucinogenics which, to me, remove the very filters that keep us sane. As much as I love the problem, filtration will always be th…

That does sound like an interesting and tough problem, how an intelligent agent can know what is relevant to the listener, and what to filter out.

I imagine it would work similarly to how human brains do, or at least how we think they do. To notice the "big picture" first, recognize large shapes then smaller details, or faster moving things then static things.

> remove the very filters that keep us sane

Haha, yes, I know what you mean. If our brains paid attention to everything coming in through the doors of perception, our mind would be flooded with information, way too much for practical purposes. Occasionally it is helpful to access such a mode of experience, but the filters are necessary for daily life in society. We can't be going around in rapturous ecstasy of gnosis all the time.

A related problem might be too much filtering, or the wrong criteria for the filters, missing what's important.

I imagine this could be solved by a conversational interface, where the listener talks with the ambient narrator to zoom in/out and focus on details as desired.

Re: Unauthorized "David Attenborough" AI clone narrates developer's life, goes viral

#158

Someone at work shared this and I thought it was hilarious and awesome. A number of other people found it disrespectful or gross. I'm sort of fascinated at the values divide. I can see why SAG/ASTRA, or voice actors, aren't going to like this technology, but it doesn't feel all that different to any other industry swept away by tech, whether that's farming, horses and carriages, mining, etc. In other words, I can see…

This demonstration is respectful. It’s funny. It’s obvious parody. But, the tech can be used to make disrespectful content. Look forward to: David Attenborough narrates porn. I don’t know what we can do. Ain’t no easy answers. But do we want courts and $Lawyers deciding what is respectful?

A full year ago I heard an extremely racist AI "David Attenborough" narration where he described an encounter between an Asian man and a Black man on a city street as if he were describing aggressive animals. It 100% sounded like a documentary though, a normal person would have no idea Attenborough wasn't actually narrating the world's most racist nature film. Now that is disrespectful, and already exists.

If I recall, soon after 4chan discovered this "hilarious trick", the API access for the AI narration tool was shut off. But those moats aren't going to last forever.

Re: Unauthorized "David Attenborough" AI clone narrates developer's life, goes viral

#159

When I see a lot of this voice replication I am reminded of something. (Dune series spoiler) For example, Duncan Idaho keeps being brought back with cloning tech, over and over, for centuries, because Leto II just likes him. Over and over, the same man keeps being put by the (nearly) immortal emperor's side... I ask: are we stuck as a monoculture, not making new, interesting things, but simply replicating older ones?…

I've always though that "Duncan Idaho" is the silliest name in all of science fiction.

Sillier than 'Hero Protagonist'?

e: or Ford Prefect ?

Re: Unauthorized "David Attenborough" AI clone narrates developer's life, goes viral

#160
post #72

Even though it is going to be extremely painful, one thing that excites me most about AI is the distinct possibility that it obliterates the concept of artificial scarcity that so much of the world relies on to create money these days. IMO, AI is exposing the frail and unnatural aspect of this legally-protected rent seeking. No, I don't think the legal system will be able to keep up, and I also don't think the infoli…

So now we’re just applying incel logic to every aspect of human creativity and expression? Do you also think that people refusing to make adult content of themselves for you is “legally protected rent seeking”?
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