Live data from Hacker News

They stole my voice with AI

jeffgeerling.com

71–80 of 461 posts

Re: They stole my voice with AI

#72
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Stolen voices matter because what's being stolen here is the authors likeness There is not enough voice space to accommodate everyone. Authors would like to fence off and own their little voice island. For every voice there are thousands of similar ones.

This was fine 10 years ago because I would, if I wanted to get an impersonator of someone's voice who carries a lot of weight, I'd have to go through to the work of hunting them down, finding out if they were willing, paying them, or I guess having tons of children and waiting decades and hoping their voice is right for what I need.

Now I can sit at a computer and spend a few hours doing it.

You are completely blowing past the facts of what a person's voice is, and the value it has if that person is someone special to a lot of people. Are there people out there who can do spot on Obama impersonations? Of course. Is the former President not wanting someone who sounds like him to pretend to be him to endorse a local candidate trying to unfairly "fence off" too much of the "voice space"? Give me a break.

Re: They stole my voice with AI

#73
post #58
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…

I'm long on humans and suspect that many people will begin to prefer imperfection in reaction to the overproliferation of ai generated content.

AI will be able to generate imperfection too.

Re: They stole my voice with AI

#74

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.

> This Jeff Geerling which I have never heard of This guy doesn't have 1/10000 of the relevance Metallica had at the time It's weird that you seem to think a person's level of fame is relevant to a discussion of their legal rights.

What legal rights? TIL voice imitators are criminals. /s

Re: They stole my voice with AI

#75
post #61

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.

How are you on hacker news and never have heard of Jeff Geerling? He's a goat in the ansible and raspberry pi world.

You would be surprised how niche these two things are. I don't care about both and 6 seconds of a tech guy's voice I am sure isn't the trademark of his content

Re: They stole my voice with AI

#78
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A bit like breaking a door is "the same ballpark" as unlocking it with a key. Or paying with legit currency instead of counterfeit.

Sometimes all you want is the effect, other times it's important that you're accurately representing effort or accounting for other human considerations.

Re: They stole my voice with AI

#79
Initially I'd say well if you're a public figure and upload your own voice online, of course this will happen. So its something to expect, however, this shouldn't be a problem for Jeff to solve... instead it should be YouTube's problem as they profit from the video monetization. Eventually they'll have to have some kind of detection for all uploaded content.

Re: They stole my voice with AI

#80
post #79

Initially I'd say well if you're a public figure and upload your own voice online, of course this will happen. So its something to expect, however, this shouldn't be a problem for Jeff to solve... instead it should be YouTube's problem as they profit from the video monetization. Eventually they'll have to have some kind of detection for all uploaded content.

I strongly disagree. I don't know the rights around one's own voice, but the idea that you suddenly lose ownership of something because you shared it online is the exact thing that many people take issue with when it is written in the terms of service for social networks, creator tools (adobe), etc.
Post reply on HN