Launch HN: Play.ht (YC W23) – Generate and clone voices from 20 seconds of audio • Hacker News Board

Re: Launch HN: Play.ht (YC W23) – Generate and clone voices from 20 seconds of audio

#141

Post by sroussey » Mon, Mar 27, 2023, 6:32 PM UTC

bitL wrote: post #45

burkaman wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess eventually people will go back to only meeting face to face for important communications. I don't know what the way forward is for news. I truly do not understand people like these founders, obviously they understand the future they're creating. "If not us, someone else would do it" is not an excuse. Neither is "I like money".

There are some cool uses like dubbing movies in foreign languages while keeping the original "voice styles" or having your long dead relatives talking to you in some memorabilia etc. It could also cause unexpected creativity explosion e.g. in games or fan fiction movies. To avoid misuses we might perhaps find the only good use of blockchain.

About the blockchain comment… For years, I’ve been expecting camera makers (including phone makers) to offer image hash verification on blockchain at the moment of image capture. I’m surprised it’s not routine.

Re: Launch HN: Play.ht (YC W23) – Generate and clone voices from 20 seconds of audio

#142

Post by 01100011 » Mon, Mar 27, 2023, 6:32 PM UTC

achr2 wrote: post #55

The world is going to become a much worse place over the next few years. I want to be an optimist, but it will take huge leaps in humanity's societal structures for AI not to be a net negative for the vast majority of people on this planet in the short term.

AI is just one threat and there are others. Regardless of whether or not COVID-19 was man made, it could have been, and it's just the first of what will be many pandemics in the next few decades. Barrier to entry for genetic engineering and bioweaponry is lower than ever, and within the reach of hobbyists or NGOs.

Re: Launch HN: Play.ht (YC W23) – Generate and clone voices from 20 seconds of audio

#143

Post by rvz » Mon, Mar 27, 2023, 6:32 PM UTC

All the better to accelerate the dystopia. At this point, it is clear that no-one cares and it is every AI maker for themselves.

Re: Launch HN: Play.ht (YC W23) – Generate and clone voices from 20 seconds of audio

#144

Post by mugr » Mon, Mar 27, 2023, 6:33 PM UTC

This is somewhat related, though I do not know how it was made. https://lexman.rocks

Re: Launch HN: Play.ht (YC W23) – Generate and clone voices from 20 seconds of audio

#145

Post by geophph » Mon, Mar 27, 2023, 6:33 PM UTC

Did you ever wonder if you really should do something like this?

Re: Launch HN: Play.ht (YC W23) – Generate and clone voices from 20 seconds of audio

#146

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Mar 27, 2023, 6:33 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Launch HN: Play.ht (YC W23) – Generate and clone voices from 20 seconds of audio

#147

Post by patrickmcnamara » Mon, Mar 27, 2023, 6:33 PM UTC

This did not work for me at all. I tried my own voice and it just made me sound like a young American instead of my actual Irish accent. I almost sounded like Microsoft Sam in both samples.

Re: Launch HN: Play.ht (YC W23) – Generate and clone voices from 20 seconds of audio

#148

Post by ss108 » Mon, Mar 27, 2023, 6:33 PM UTC

notafraudster wrote: post #136

manuelmoreale wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm with you on this. I can't honestly think a good use case for the average user to generate audio this way. Maybe some niche use case in like movie or tv production where you can generate a missing line without flying in an actor or something. Or maybe for generating dialogues for videogames. But those are business use cases, not things for the genral public.

My Dad died before my kids were born. When he got cancer, he recorded himself reading "The Night Before Christmas", which is about enough audio for the high quality version of this technology. Is it ghoulish on my part to want to hear his voice again or for my kids to hear it? Maybe. Do I really care what you think (or really what _I_ think) about that? No.

Sorry to hear. Hope your kids enjoy his recording.

But yes, it would be weird to generate more stuff spoken by your father by using this technology. And beyond that, what's even the point? It's not your dad.

Re: Launch HN: Play.ht (YC W23) – Generate and clone voices from 20 seconds of audio

#149

Post by woeirua » Mon, Mar 27, 2023, 6:36 PM UTC

The potential for scamming is limitless with this. Elderly people were vulnerable to phone calls from their "relatives" before when the voices didn't even sound that close. Can you imagine what the hit rate is going to be on these scams when the voices are nearly identical to the voice of their relative? Also, at some point I expect that even answering the phone and saying "Hello" will be enough for some AI model to zero-shot clone your voice with enough fidelity to pass to most people. Tech like this is going to absolutely destroy what little remains of voice conversations over phones.

Re: Launch HN: Play.ht (YC W23) – Generate and clone voices from 20 seconds of audio

#150

Post by hammadh » Mon, Mar 27, 2023, 6:37 PM UTC

Dowwie wrote: post #118

I recommend you immediately add identity verification (state-issued identification verification), set up appropriate secrets store for PII, and audit trail EVERYTHING your users are doing, storing the contents in a secure location. Yesterday. This service will be used to harm others, shortly. I do think that there are exciting, honest things that can be done with this service but you need to set up some friction for…

Couldn't agree more with your comment. We are working on counter measures like manual verification of voice, a classifier to detect cloned speech, etc. As of now we have auto moderation in place that detects and blocks hate/harmful speech.