Live data from Hacker News

OpenAI rolls out Advanced Voice Mode with more voices and a new look

techcrunch.com

71–80 of 85 posts

Re: OpenAI rolls out Advanced Voice Mode with more voices and a new look

#71
post #38
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple Intelligence was only ever going to support American English this year anyway, with other languages coming in 2025 and beyond. That would somewhat limit its effectiveness in the EU to begin with ... Their AI product wasn't ready for other languages, not even British English where the DMA definitely doesn't apply. A person would have to be very naive to believe Apple directly here. They just want to generate b…

Apple will be rolling out AI in Switzerland but not in the EU, despite shared sets of languages.

We don't know that yet.

My suspicion is that Apple is stomping its foot as loudly as possible about the evil European Commission while getting language/localization support in order.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if they suddenly and miraculously discovered a way to somehow still be compliant in the last minute and launch the feature as planned to not endanger their sales.

Re: OpenAI rolls out Advanced Voice Mode with more voices and a new look

#72
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe this, gpt4o and chatgpt is already available in the EU. Adding advanced voice mode doesn't change anything.

The main thing compared to the old voice mode is that your speech instead of being fed to a speech to text model is now fed to the LLM directly. I'm not sure if that would be enough to trigger a need for external review though. If they were using your voice recording for training purposes, then of course absolutely. Which then for a good reason. Or it could also be about the way the voice recording is transported or…

In the end, you can put whatever you want to external review, and similarly to how nobody gets fired for hiring a big consulting firm, nobody gets fired for flagging something for legal review...

Re: OpenAI rolls out Advanced Voice Mode with more voices and a new look

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sam Altman only said this: https://x.com/sama/status/1838864011321872407 >except for jurisdictions that require additional external review

...I'm not at all clear what this external review would be for either the UK or Switzerland.

Judging from the list of countries this looks like a Europe vs EU confusion somewhere inside OpenAI. That is someone said "Europe" needs external review, and this got translated into "EU+other countries in Europe" for launch control.

Unfortunately the EU strongly encourages this sort of confusion. EU Commission staff and MEPs constantly say "Europe" when what they mean is the EU. And because most of Europe is in the EU, it's especially confusing.

Re: OpenAI rolls out Advanced Voice Mode with more voices and a new look

#74
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Surprising that there isn't a 'hey siri' for chatgpt yet Sort of a middleman approach and certainly not perfect, but you can invoke ChatGPT with Siri using Shortcuts. https://help.openai.com/en/articles/7993358-chatgpt-ios-app-...

Interesting, do you know whether this can invoke Voice Mode?

[deleted]

Re: OpenAI rolls out Advanced Voice Mode with more voices and a new look

#75
post #22
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... you instantly know they're up to no good. You're refering to the EU here, right?

No. Not that everything they do is good. But something being illegal in the EU is a bad indicator for sure.

Right, but this is not illegal, nor is the AI act any sort of criminal law. At Unsurprisingly all they want is to avoid insane fines due to vague EU regulations.

Re: OpenAI rolls out Advanced Voice Mode with more voices and a new look

#76
post #9
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's definitely legal issues, probably the same reason Apple is not rolling some of the new features like Apple Intelligence in iOS 18 to EU. [0] https://www.macworld.com/article/2374452/apple-intelligence-...

I don't believe this, gpt4o and chatgpt is already available in the EU. Adding advanced voice mode doesn't change anything.

This voice mode can understand emotions, something the AI act regulates as "very risky"

Re: OpenAI rolls out Advanced Voice Mode with more voices and a new look

#77

I tried asking it to practice Chinese with me. It claimed to be able to identify tones. I tested it by using the wrong tones on purpose and it said my pronunciation was "really great". Seems like it just praises you no matter what you do.

I tested its ability to detect issues in my nonnative pronunciation of Japanese and Russian. As with you, it praised me more than I wanted, but it also provided pointed, appropriate feedback.

I was particularly impressed that it corrected the pitch accent of some words I said in Japanese. I speak Japanese fluently but, because I began learning as an adult, I have a foreign accent that I am unable to lose. One major component of my nonnative sound is my inadequate acquisition of the pitch accent system. Nobody ever corrects me in conversation and it would be annoying if they did. If, when I started learning Japanese forty years ago, I had had a bot that could hear and correct my pronunciation, I would have less of a foreign accent now.

Some prompt engineering is needed, though, to get rid of that excessive praise. In my next tests, I will just tell it not to praise me at all. That should work.

Re: OpenAI rolls out Advanced Voice Mode with more voices and a new look

#78
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Surprising that there isn't a 'hey siri' for chatgpt yet Sort of a middleman approach and certainly not perfect, but you can invoke ChatGPT with Siri using Shortcuts. https://help.openai.com/en/articles/7993358-chatgpt-ios-app-...

Interesting, do you know whether this can invoke Voice Mode?

I switched to Claude, but when I was still using ChatGPT, I had a shortcut set up to initiate Voice mode directly, yes. I had set it up for the Action button, but you could surely trigger this with Siri too. You'll likely have to unlock with faceID first though.

Re: OpenAI rolls out Advanced Voice Mode with more voices and a new look

#79

I was hoping to find a voice like Microsoft's "Guy" (a name, not referring to the gender) or Google Assistant's "Pink". An unambiguously white, masculine, American "radio voice" or "audiobook narrator" voice. ChatGPT describes this as "A rich, deep, and smooth tone that is pleasant to listen to for extended periods. This often comes from good control over pitch and timbre, creating a voice that resonates well." If yo…

I've been using Ember with standard voice mode because it nostalgically reminds me of the style of narration from certain old 90s edu-games, but it doesn't register as "black" to me. Ditto what you term the "Sal Khan" voice (?), which seems even closer to the style you describe (personally, it reminds me of the voice of the military bot TARS from Interstellar, voiced by Bill Irwin). And a gruff Australian man ain't exactly "woke" or whatever. Odd take.

PS: You can modulate the standard voices with a custom system prompt, including asking them to speak at a lower tone or with an American accent.

Re: OpenAI rolls out Advanced Voice Mode with more voices and a new look

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I initially thought this had to do with regulation as well, but people trying it over a VPN are complaining about latency, which makes me believe there's a technical (deployment regions) reason for it as well (Also language reasons as well - though it seems it works with other languages) How well does it work in the UK (and understanding its regional accents?)

I doubt they would bother blocking the 1 user from Liechtenstein if it was about keeping the usage numbers low for performance reasons.

Not blocked due to load, but latency due to distance
Post reply on HN