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Crossing the uncanny valley of conversational voice

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Re: Crossing the uncanny valley of conversational voice

#61

Post by MarcelOlsz »

igleria wrote: post #59
hn_user82179 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was genuinely startling how human it felt. Apparently they are planning on open-sourcing some of their work as well as selling glasses (presumably with the voice assistant). I’m very excited to have a voice assistant like this and am almost a bit worried I will start feeling emotionally attached to a voice assistant with this level of human-like sound.

Maybe the ability to personalize the voice so it is more... robotic or based on a fictional thing like Knight Rider would help to change the attachment to something more... healthy?

Yeah this is straight up creepy, and I also can't stand chatgpt saying "Lmao" and "Yeah". Keep it formal & robotic.

Re: Crossing the uncanny valley of conversational voice

#62

Post by FranzFerdiNaN »

tovej wrote: post #55
EGreg wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been asking this for years. People keep saying stuff like "but you'll want the human touch." Really? So when was the last time you asked someone for directions? Personally, I'd rather google something or discuss with ChatGPT than make someone listen to me for an hour. And that someone has to be extremely knowledgeable about a lot of different topics! Even here. Would I rather converse with y'all and get downvote…

Because the humans are reasoning and the LLMs aren't? I have yet to use an LLM for a complex problem and not have it hallucinate. I expect a reasonable counterargument here would be 'but the LLMs have chain of thought now, and that's reasoning". I disagree, but I think that's a reasonable point of view. I can concede that point because it does not materially change the value of the output. Even if it does use chain o…

People here are hallucinating too. So many people making obviously wrong claims with full confidence, which you only notice when it’s about something you know a lot about yourself.

Re: Crossing the uncanny valley of conversational voice

#63

Post by anal_reactor »

thekevan wrote: post #10

It's good, but it still sounds fake to me, but in a different way. The voice itself sounds like a human, undoubtedly. But the cadence and the rhythm of speaking are off. It sounds like someone who isn't a podcaster trying to speak in the personality of a podcaster. It just sounds like someone trying too hard and speaking in an unnatural way.

A few times the CEO of my company randomly joined me for lunch, but each time he forgot to leave behind his persona of "I'm a public speaker right now", making the whole situation feel extremely awkward. This AI gives me exactly the same vibes.

Re: Crossing the uncanny valley of conversational voice

#64

Post by FranzFerdiNaN »

pmarreck wrote: post #25
kats wrote: post #5

AI voice is an overwhelmingly harmful technology. It's biggest use will be to hurt people.

Nope. Awareness will inoculate people. “Authenticating” someone via the mere sound of their voice was always broken, anyway… Ever see the great movie Sneakers (1992)?

Do you live in reality? Because that clearly isn’t happening.

Re: Crossing the uncanny valley of conversational voice

#65

Post by adastra22 »

juliushuijnk wrote: post #28
mohsen1 wrote: post #22

The intelligence of the model is very low though. I asked it about catcalling and it started to talk about cats!

If you'd ask me, I'd do the same. I guess I'll search online what it means..

Unwanted, very loud verbal attention between strangers (usually men delivered to women), in public. E.g. whistling, shouting something suggestive, etc.

Re: Crossing the uncanny valley of conversational voice

#66

Post by mrkstu »

monroewalker wrote: post #12
tobr wrote: post #8

I asked it if it could whisper, and it replied in full voice, ”I’m whispering to you right now”.

lol yeah I tried to get it to whisper too. And talk faster or slower or do accents. It seemed to be able to kind of do each of those things but only very slightly. Enough to see that there was some successful interpretation of the request but lack of flexibility to fully execute on it. OpenAI's model still has this beat on that front imo (talking quietly / slower / faster)

The male's Australian accent consisted of throwing a 'fair dinkum' in while keeping it's vague New York accent.

Re: Crossing the uncanny valley of conversational voice

#67

Post by ekianjo »

Mistletoe wrote: post #36
monroewalker wrote: post #2

This was already posted here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43221377 but I’m really surprised at the lack of attention this model is getting. The responsiveness and apparent personality are pretty mind blowing. It’s similar to what OpenAI had initially demoed for advanced voice mode, at least for the voice conversation portion. The demo interactions are recorded, which is mentioned in their disclaimer under th…

Just realizing how uncanny valley it is to talk to AI and it never remembers anything you said in the past. Imagine if a human did that. It’s like you are talking to Tom Hanks’ Mr. Short Term Memory from SNL over and over. https://youtube.com/watch?v=C6ufImch00g

That can easily be fixed if you attach it to a RAG system

Re: Crossing the uncanny valley of conversational voice

#68

Post by Syntonicles »

mohsen1 wrote: post #22

The intelligence of the model is very low though. I asked it about catcalling and it started to talk about cats!

This is a feint. By ramping up the pressure, calling it out and demanding it take on a more intelligent role, I was able to break out of the crafted personality and get much more intelligent responses. It copped to dumbing itself down for the sake of conversation quality.

Re: Crossing the uncanny valley of conversational voice

#69

Post by cl3misch »

tovej wrote: post #55
EGreg wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been asking this for years. People keep saying stuff like "but you'll want the human touch." Really? So when was the last time you asked someone for directions? Personally, I'd rather google something or discuss with ChatGPT than make someone listen to me for an hour. And that someone has to be extremely knowledgeable about a lot of different topics! Even here. Would I rather converse with y'all and get downvote…

Because the humans are reasoning and the LLMs aren't? I have yet to use an LLM for a complex problem and not have it hallucinate. I expect a reasonable counterargument here would be 'but the LLMs have chain of thought now, and that's reasoning". I disagree, but I think that's a reasonable point of view. I can concede that point because it does not materially change the value of the output. Even if it does use chain o…

Are you not reasoning on lossy abstractions?

I'm still not on board with the (seemingly prevalent) notion that LLM's can't reason. What's reasoning, anyway? I'm not actively advocating for any side, but the arguments against reasoning always felt very tautological to me.

Re: Crossing the uncanny valley of conversational voice

#70

Post by akie »

thekevan wrote: post #10

It's good, but it still sounds fake to me, but in a different way. The voice itself sounds like a human, undoubtedly. But the cadence and the rhythm of speaking are off. It sounds like someone who isn't a podcaster trying to speak in the personality of a podcaster. It just sounds like someone trying too hard and speaking in an unnatural way.

I also think it didn't feel very "real". Trying too hard to sound upbeat and too eager to please, maybe it's just me being European but it makes me go "ewww, that's not how normal people speak".
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