Live data from Hacker News

They stole my voice with AI

jeffgeerling.com

41–50 of 461 posts

Re: They stole my voice with AI

#41
post #19

Maybe I am crazy but I don't really think it sounds that much like him. It's a little similar but different. It's slightly higher pitch, more nasal, and the intonation is a little different.

As someone who hasn't heard of him before, from the first few seconds of this video, I'd say it sounds similar enough to be an imperfect AI clone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMofZIT9FcQ

Re: They stole my voice with AI

#42
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much? This IP/copyright mentality is so 90s/2000s. Brings back memories of Napster. This Jeff Geerling which I have never heard of will cry until some Spotify of AI appears and pay him some pennies. Maybe he wants to be the James Hetfield/Metallica of this generation. This guy doesn't have 1/10000 of the relevance Metallica had at the time tho.

The danger of this shit can not be understated. Four years ago already there was a video where a deepfake of a president of the USA read a speech: In Event of Moon Disaster https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWLadJFI8Pk we of course know Nixon never gave this speech. What happens when this "AI" is used to sway an election? Last month a family got hospitalized after eating mushrooms they found and identified from a AI ge…

>Last month a family got hospitalized after eating mushrooms they found and identified from a AI generated book.

Yeah, mushrooms are very dangerous, but the argument here is that the book could be written by a human. So what's the best way forward? Ban A.I. books, and human books?

A.I. also, is the best way IMHO to identify mushrooms. Mushrooms are drastically different from one another by magnifying their spores using a microscope. That's not the case when looking at the fruit. Mushrooms totally unrelated to one another, may turn out to be very similar, depending on season, humidity, rain, elevation, tree hosts, temperature and soil.

However when a human tries to examine the spores, he has to compare the spores to thousands of mushrooms to be sure. That's an amount of information, that only mechanically could be tackled effectively. A.I. may have a good chance to solve that problem.

Re: They stole my voice with AI

#43

This whole argument rests on the absurd assumption that you can "own" a voice as if it's property. Does this mean people can own the patterns of vibration in air? It's completely nonsensical.

More like owning an identity or likeness, which is a fundamental basis of many fraud cases. It seems that Jeff Geerling is a resident of Missouri which also has Supreme Court precedent to test for "Right of Publicity" [1]:

"If a product is being sold that predominantly exploits the commercial value of an individual's identity, that product should be held to violate the right of publicity and not be protected by the First Amendment, even if there is some "expressive" content in it that might qualify as "speech" in other circumstances."

Whether or not the voice is determined to be predominant would be for courts to decide, of course, but there's clearly an argument.

1: https://law.justia.com/cases/missouri/court-of-appeals/2006/...

Re: They stole my voice with AI

#44
post #32

The idea that stolen voice tones are going to matter at all is one of the shortest sighted bits of AI investment - powered by Hollywood "never make anything new" thinking. In about 5 years AI voices will be bespoke and more pleasant to listen to then any real human: they're not limited by vocal cord stress, can be altered at will, and can easily be calibrated by surveying user engagement. Subtly tweaking voice output…

Stolen voices matter because what's being stolen here is the authors likeness, his reputation that he's build in the YouTube tech space and used for commercial products he had already reviewed. They chose exactly his voice for that reason.

While AI voices will aesthetically be indistinguishable or even preferable they aren't going to carry any reputation or authenticity, which by definition is scarce and therefore valuable. In fact they're likely going to matter more because in a sea of generic commodified slop demand for people who command unique brand value goes up, not down. That's why influencers make the big bucks in advertising these days.

Re: They stole my voice with AI

#45
post #4

I appreciate his pointer to precedent, but the truth is that while precedent is a start, we're going to need to do work with principles beyond precedent. When tech introduces unprecedented capabilities, we will either figure out how to draw boundaries within which it (among other features of society) works for people, not against them, or we'll let it lead us closer to a world in which the strong do what they will an…

California recently signed some legislation into effect. It’s a start. Congress is working on “No Artificial Intelligence Fake Replicas And Unauthorized Duplications Act.” Still in dev in the House, but has bipartisan support. Call your congressperson, ask them to co-sponsor and/or vote for it. https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/california-bills-pro... https://salazar.house.gov/media/press-releases/salazar-intro…

The copyright hell carries on it looks like.

Re: They stole my voice with AI

#46
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

California recently signed some legislation into effect. It’s a start. Congress is working on “No Artificial Intelligence Fake Replicas And Unauthorized Duplications Act.” Still in dev in the House, but has bipartisan support. Call your congressperson, ask them to co-sponsor and/or vote for it. https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/california-bills-pro... https://salazar.house.gov/media/press-releases/salazar-intro…

It's going to be an interesting First Amendment question.

Might as well make photoshopping and manual audio tweaking / impersonation illegal, since its the same ballpark, just less effort.

Re: They stole my voice with AI

#47
post #32

The idea that stolen voice tones are going to matter at all is one of the shortest sighted bits of AI investment - powered by Hollywood "never make anything new" thinking. In about 5 years AI voices will be bespoke and more pleasant to listen to then any real human: they're not limited by vocal cord stress, can be altered at will, and can easily be calibrated by surveying user engagement. Subtly tweaking voice output…

In my country there's a lot of dubbing, that are some dubbing actors who millions of people grew up listening to them on animes and the like, I could see companies buying their voices, because in that situation is not only about being pleasant, but a lot about familiarity. ElevenLabs, for instance, bought some voice rights from deceased people from their estate.

But aside this nostalgic-ish specific context, I don't see why wouldn't they just create a synthetic voice to begin with it.

Re: They stole my voice with AI

#48

This whole argument rests on the absurd assumption that you can "own" a voice as if it's property. Does this mean people can own the patterns of vibration in air? It's completely nonsensical.

You can own your likeness. Does that mean you can own the photos that represent your face? Yes, yes you can. Why should you voice be different?

Human voices store shared accent data too not just biometrics, your siblings/twins/sorority sisters likely present with extremely similar voices which can cause the same confusion as AI clones. is it most famous sibling first gets the copyright or are siblings the only ones with the power to supersede it or must they alter their voice? Simple voice never really was guaranteed to be a unique part of identity since it changes so easily over time and ages.

Re: They stole my voice with AI

#49
post #19

Maybe I am crazy but I don't really think it sounds that much like him. It's a little similar but different. It's slightly higher pitch, more nasal, and the intonation is a little different.

I’ve watched hundreds of his videos and it sounds very much like him.

Re: They stole my voice with AI

#50
post #32

The idea that stolen voice tones are going to matter at all is one of the shortest sighted bits of AI investment - powered by Hollywood "never make anything new" thinking. In about 5 years AI voices will be bespoke and more pleasant to listen to then any real human: they're not limited by vocal cord stress, can be altered at will, and can easily be calibrated by surveying user engagement. Subtly tweaking voice output…

Stolen voices matter because what's being stolen here is the authors likeness, his reputation that he's build in the YouTube tech space and used for commercial products he had already reviewed. They chose exactly his voice for that reason. While AI voices will aesthetically be indistinguishable or even preferable they aren't going to carry any reputation or authenticity, which by definition is scarce and therefore va…

Exactly. If it was a brand of pen ink cartridges or dishwasher detergent, that's one thing (still would be wrong, but not as egregious, and I might never have known it happened).

The fact is, Elecrow's a company I've worked with in the past (never signed any contracts, but reviewed a product of theirs 4 years ago that they provided). They're active in the exact same space my YouTube audience is (Pi, microcontrollers, hobby electronics, homelab).

There are a number of potential Elecrow customers who also subscribe to my YouTube channel (one of them alerted me to the tutorial series, in fact), and I would rather not have people be confused thinking I've sold my likeness or voice to be used for corporate product tutorials.

Especially any competitors to Elecrow, who I may have a relationship with, that could be soured if they think I'm suddenly selling my voice/online persona for Elecrow's use.

Post reply on HN