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They stole my voice with AI

jeffgeerling.com

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Re: They stole my voice with AI

#141

Post by microtonal »

godelski wrote: post #140
ryzvonusef wrote: post #135

Everyone has their own fears about AI, but my fears are especially chilling; what if AI was used to imitate a person saying something blasphemeous? My country is already has blasphemy lynching mobs based on the slightest perceived insult, real or imagined. They will mob you, lynch you, burn your corpse, then distribute sweets while you family hide and issue video messages denouncing you and forgiving the mob. And thi…

> what if AI was used to imitate a person saying something blasphemeous? I've been contemplating writing an open letter to Dang to nuke my account. Because at this time you can likely deanonymize any user with a fair amount of comments. As long as you can correlate. You can certainly steal their language, even if not 100% accurate. It may be caution, but it isn't certain that we won't enter a dark forest and there's…

There should be a way to cryptographically sign posts (everywhere). I know, building a web of trust sucks, etc. But if there was someone with your username signing with a particular key for 10 years and then suddenly there is something controversial somewhere with a different key, something fishy is going on.

Of course, this could be misused to post something with plausible deniability, but if you want to say something controversial, why wouldn't you make another account for that anyway?

I know that one could theoretically sign posts with GPG, but it would be much nicer and less noisy if sites would have UI to show something like: Signed by , key used for N years.

One issues is that most social media want your identity to be the account on their service and not some identity (i.e. key) that you control.

Re: They stole my voice with AI

#142

Post by nkrisc »

yallpendantools wrote: post #126
ninalanyon wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original meaning of the word computer was a person who calculates. Looks perfectly clear to me.

> The original meaning of the word computer was a person who calculates. Was that ever so? According to Google Ngrams, "computer" was not really a term until, predictably, around 1950, even though the verb "compute" has been in use throughout history (it comes from the Latin "computare", apparently). That tells me "computer" was never a person, always a machine. https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=compute%2…

The first “computers” were people, who computed. And the term was used to mean as much until very recently.

> From 1953 to 1958, Johnson worked as a computer,[23] analyzing topics such as gust alleviation for aircraft.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Johnson

Re: They stole my voice with AI

#143

Post by the_other »

yallpendantools wrote: post #119
wruza wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what theft even means any more They dragged the term through different phases, but that’s just projection of will. Theft is undefined for objects with .copy() interface. It’s still there when you look at it. People have to adjust expectations, not laws. Computers replaced computers, now voice acting replaces voice actors. Your popularity doesn’t mean anything really and wouldn’t it be unfair if only popular could spa…

> They dragged the term through different phases, but that’s just projection of will. In other words, that's just the normal lifecycle of words in a language with an active speaker community. In any stage of history, the meaning of words is just the speaker community's projection of will. Best I can do now is acknowledge that what counts as "theft" is a complicated topic and can't be decided by a binary "is said obje…

In an attempt to add a pithy but trite summary to your good words:

Laws are codified expectations.

Re: They stole my voice with AI

#144

Post by ryzvonusef »

pnut wrote: post #139
ryzvonusef wrote: post #135

Everyone has their own fears about AI, but my fears are especially chilling; what if AI was used to imitate a person saying something blasphemeous? My country is already has blasphemy lynching mobs based on the slightest perceived insult, real or imagined. They will mob you, lynch you, burn your corpse, then distribute sweets while you family hide and issue video messages denouncing you and forgiving the mob. And thi…

I guess then, you should use AI to generate videos of all of the lynch mob leadership committing blasphemy and let them sort it out internally?

You joke but, given the religious/sectarian nature of the issue, all it does is empower one sect to act against the leaders of the other sect.

Check the twitter link, you won't have to scroll much to find a mullah being blasted for blasphemy. No one is safe.

Re: They stole my voice with AI

#146

Post by godelski »

adityaathalye wrote: post #89

If LLMs are the ultimate remix machine, then is anyone with a RAG a digital DJ? One can't help but wonder what theft even means any more, when it comes to digital information. With the (lack of) legal precedent, it feels like the wild wild west of intellectual property and copyright law. Like, if even a superstar like Scarlett Johansson can only write a pained letter about OpenAI's hustle to mimic her "Her" persona,…

  > One can't help but wonder what theft even means any more, when it comes to digital information.
I'm not sure this is _just_ a digital problem. Did not Eric Schmidt not recently say that you should steal things and let the lawyers figure it out later if you're successful?[0,1]

[0] https://x.com/alexeheath/status/1823873344133062680

[1] I mean he said you should legally steal things... whatever that means...

Re: They stole my voice with AI

#147

Post by Kenji »

ryzvonusef wrote: post #135

Everyone has their own fears about AI, but my fears are especially chilling; what if AI was used to imitate a person saying something blasphemeous? My country is already has blasphemy lynching mobs based on the slightest perceived insult, real or imagined. They will mob you, lynch you, burn your corpse, then distribute sweets while you family hide and issue video messages denouncing you and forgiving the mob. And thi…

[dead]

Re: They stole my voice with AI

#148

Post by sourraspberry »

scotty79 wrote: post #109

> I remember when OpenAI practically cloned Scarlett Johanssen's voice Except that never happened and the voice belonged to a completely different voice actress and Scarlett Johanssen had exactly zero right to prevent this person from making money as a voice actress lending it to AI. These complaints remind me a little bit of the story that a man complained that his photo was used to illustrate the article about how…

They reached out to Scarlett Johanssen.

She said no.

So they found a soundalike and Tweeted out references to the movie Her (starring Scarlett Johanssen as an AI chat bot) in the days leading up to launch.

Scummy as fuck from OpenAI regardless of the technical legal rights and issues involved.

Re: They stole my voice with AI

#149

Post by godelski »

microtonal wrote: post #141
godelski wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what if AI was used to imitate a person saying something blasphemeous? I've been contemplating writing an open letter to Dang to nuke my account. Because at this time you can likely deanonymize any user with a fair amount of comments. As long as you can correlate. You can certainly steal their language, even if not 100% accurate. It may be caution, but it isn't certain that we won't enter a dark forest and there's…

There should be a way to cryptographically sign posts (everywhere). I know, building a web of trust sucks, etc. But if there was someone with your username signing with a particular key for 10 years and then suddenly there is something controversial somewhere with a different key, something fishy is going on. Of course, this could be misused to post something with plausible deniability, but if you want to say somethi…

  > There should be a way to cryptographically sign posts (everywhere).
This just confirms it is me. Which yes, reduces the problem of me being replicated, but does not do anything for my anonymity. That part may not seem important to you, considering you use your real name, but it is to me. It allows me to be more open.

Key signing will not be the solution because it isn't addressing the problem. It exacerbates it.

Re: They stole my voice with AI

#150

Post by microtonal »

adityaathalye wrote: post #89

If LLMs are the ultimate remix machine, then is anyone with a RAG a digital DJ? One can't help but wonder what theft even means any more, when it comes to digital information. With the (lack of) legal precedent, it feels like the wild wild west of intellectual property and copyright law. Like, if even a superstar like Scarlett Johansson can only write a pained letter about OpenAI's hustle to mimic her "Her" persona,…

what can the comparatively garden-variety niche nerd do? [...] Like Geerling, feel equally sad / angry / frustrated

For this kind of misuse, the person needs to have some fame, or it's not interesting to steal their voice. In such cases, their fame can be used for retribution. E.g. I can't imagine that this will be good for the reputation of Elecrow in the end. Next time I read the name of this company, I'll think oh it's that company that is scamming people, not good for them.

I am more worried about the cases where someone uses this to e.g. get rid of a they don't like. E.g. imagine some university lecturer that has done nothing wrong, a student is not happy with their grade, use voice cloning to imply that the lecturer said something that could get them fired. With voice cloning getting really good, how can someone like that defend themselves? (Until this becomes so commonplace recordings are not trusted anymore.)

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