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How the voices for ChatGPT were chosen

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Re: How the voices for ChatGPT were chosen

#31

Post by exitb »

datahack wrote: post #6

Am I the only one that really dislikes these overly perky voices? And the one they used for the demo was GOD AWFUL. If this is what the future sounds like… idk. I was hoping for a calm, neutral and not eager assistant with a little class. A little Jarvis maybe? Something calm and easy on the ears. These all sounded to me like people auditioning for a role in film and television or something.

This is contextual, the model seems to match the user vibe and the general situation. Take a look at the "Customer service proof of concept" video added to the announcement post[1] - there are two AIs talking using very different voices.

[1] https://openai.com/index/hello-gpt-4o/

Re: How the voices for ChatGPT were chosen

#32

Post by Joeri »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #20

None of the voices really seem that good to me. I think it's because they're all aggressively American. It would be nice to hear some other accents.

I had Sky answer in dutch, and hearing dutch with an american accent is funny but a little jarring. The frustrating part of being a flemish dutch speaker is that dutch itself is already poorly served by AI tools (it’s actually impressive chatgpt can do it at all) and additionally the flemish accent and dialects are not supported at all in pretty much anything, so all dutch text to speech sounds foreign.

I hope eventually they can pick up language, dialect and accent from youtube content or something like that, because voice casting will never scale to the thousands of variations they need to have to support a global audience. Instead of picking a voice from a handful of choices it should do a q&a where it learns your locale and intonation preferences and generates a tailored voice on the fly.

Still, I am impressed with the quality of the voices they have and with how well they manage dutch. It is just the case that there still is a lot of room for growth.

Re: How the voices for ChatGPT were chosen

#34

Post by th0ma5 »

From their Discord server: > @ everyone We’ve heard questions about how we chose the voices in ChatGPT, especially Sky. We are working to pause the use of Sky while we address them. Read more about how we chose these voices [link above, but no further details]

Re: How the voices for ChatGPT were chosen

#35

Post by thomashop »

GaggiX wrote: post #30
thomashop wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because assigning genders to computers makes as much sense as giving your toaster a name, it’s 2024, so why not keep the gender out of it? The why question is easily answered if you see how many negative reactions their choice of voice caused. A gender-neutral voice would have just avoided annoying a certain percentage of the population, including me. I'm happy if advertising stops hitting the sexy/cliched stereotype…

>The why question is easily answered if you see how many negative reactions their choice of voice caused. To be honest, this HN thread was the first time I saw someone complaining about male and female voices in ChatGPT. >A gender-neutral voice would have just avoided annoying a certain percentage of the population, including me. The voice actors and actresses hired by OpenAI use their natural voices for training, I…

> To be honest, that HN thread was the first time I saw someone complaining about male and female voices in ChatGPT.

It's the fifth place I've seen it since yesterday. And I haven't been looking. Even my mum sent me a Guardian article about it on Whatsapp.

Daily show: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/51ucQ4s7Crc

In my opinion, they should have hired a trans person, created a gender-neutral voice, and used that as the default. It would not have caused a backlash to the voices.

Re: How the voices for ChatGPT were chosen

#36

Post by jgrahamc »

DeathArrow wrote: post #18
datahack wrote: post #6

Am I the only one that really dislikes these overly perky voices? And the one they used for the demo was GOD AWFUL. If this is what the future sounds like… idk. I was hoping for a calm, neutral and not eager assistant with a little class. A little Jarvis maybe? Something calm and easy on the ears. These all sounded to me like people auditioning for a role in film and television or something.

I would like something more David Attenborough-ish.

I would like the voice of HAL: soft and calm.

Re: How the voices for ChatGPT were chosen

#37

Post by saurik »

> We believe that AI voices should not deliberately mimic a celebrity's distinctive voice—Sky’s voice is not an imitation of Scarlett Johansson but belongs to a different professional actress using her own natural speaking voice. To protect their privacy, we cannot share the names of our voice talents.

I love how they have to go out of their way to explain that, rather than train a model on Scarlett Johansson's voice, they came about her voice honestly, by just finding someone who's natural voice sounded the most like Scarlett Johansson... as, clearly, no one is questioning that this voice was chosen to mimic Scarlett Johansson.

Re: How the voices for ChatGPT were chosen

#38

Post by Arisaka1 »

thomashop wrote: post #15
iLoveOncall wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why?

Because assigning genders to computers makes as much sense as giving your toaster a name, it’s 2024, so why not keep the gender out of it? The why question is easily answered if you see how many negative reactions their choice of voice caused. A gender-neutral voice would have just avoided annoying a certain percentage of the population, including me. I'm happy if advertising stops hitting the sexy/cliched stereotype…

>Because assigning genders to computers makes as much sense as giving your toaster a name, it’s 2024, so why not keep the gender out of it?

The goal of a tool is to be used by someone, and if the interface is the voice that the user can interact with it makes sense that it should ultimately be up to the user's preferences how the voice will sound like.

I see the fact that they're aiming for gender-neutral voice as yet another ludicrous attempt to advertise their advocation for inclusiveness which, while I'm in favor, I think has manifestations that go well past benefiting the original intention. Examples: Main over Master branch on git repositories, Latinx, removing "blind playthrough" on Twitch.tv because it indicates ableism, and so on.

I don't mind having some voice selections out of the box, but if they're gonna restrict my options and ability to change them to fit my preferences then I do mind. Our primal brain (lizard/monkey, or whatever tag you feel like assigning) will always perceive voice interaction as "talking to someone else", so why not just let the user choose who they talk to? It's a tool, for the user's needs. There's no need with appropriate ascribing of a gender to a tool, because it's not a human or anything living.

Re: How the voices for ChatGPT were chosen

#39

Post by defrost »

saurik wrote: post #37

> We believe that AI voices should not deliberately mimic a celebrity's distinctive voice—Sky’s voice is not an imitation of Scarlett Johansson but belongs to a different professional actress using her own natural speaking voice. To protect their privacy, we cannot share the names of our voice talents. I love how they have to go out of their way to explain that, rather than train a model on Scarlett Johansson's voice…

Some are questioning why they chose not to mimic Stephen Fry https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7E-aoXLZGY or Attenborough.

Re: How the voices for ChatGPT were chosen

#40

Post by easymodex »

th0ma5 wrote: post #34

From their Discord server: > @ everyone We’ve heard questions about how we chose the voices in ChatGPT, especially Sky. We are working to pause the use of Sky while we address them. Read more about how we chose these voices [link above, but no further details]

Wow, so they actually got bullied into removing the voice? What a world. I actually liked that voice or at least didn't find any issue with it, they are all perky assistant type voices, but why not? Adding extra choices is fine if people want it, but removing the voice due to loud minority effect is just sad.
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