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Radio host David Greene says Google's NotebookLM tool stole his voice

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Re: Radio host David Greene says Google's NotebookLM tool stole his voice

#61

Post by apparent »

amelius wrote: post #48
apparent wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've listened to tens of hours of NotebookLM, and this doesn't even seem close. If someone had played his voice for me and asked if it sounded like any LLM/bot I was aware of, I would have said no. It would not have even occurred to me that they were thinking of NotebookLM. As @crazygringo said, David's voice is lower. I think it might have some of the same harmonics, but it has some lower ones too, which make the ov…

Probably it's what his voice sounds like to himself. Maybe he should listen to his own podcasts more.

I thought about this. IIRC a person's voice sounds deeper in his own head because it reverberates in his skull. if anything, this would make David think the NotebookLM voice sound less like his (since his is already deeper, to begin with). But it's possible that a professional radio host is aware of this effect and adjusts for it when deciding if something sounds like him. Maybe he over-adjusts and thinks this is what he sounds like.

As for his wife, it's possible that he speaks in a higher/friendlier register when talking to her/their kids.

Re: Radio host David Greene says Google's NotebookLM tool stole his voice

#62

Post by wackget »

tantalor wrote: post #25

Compare for yourself. David Greene: https://youtu.be/xYxQrLp4MQk NotebookLM: https://youtu.be/AR4dRtzFvxM I think he just has "podcast guy" voice. It's pretty generic.

It's like they tried their hardest to add as much vocal fry [1] as possible.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0yL2GezneU

Re: Radio host David Greene says Google's NotebookLM tool stole his voice

#63

Post by anigbrowl »

13415 wrote: post #8
barbazoo wrote: post #5

> Greene felt the male voice sounded just like him Turns out he still has his own voice, that one sounds like him.

That's likely the case because they deliberately cloned his voice.

I've been a pro sound engineer for 30 years, doing music, film, and producing podcasts for other people, plus I have years of prior training in elocution, which requires knowing about the anatomy and articulation dynamics of the human voice.

The voices don't sound that similar to me, and he has what I think of as a generic mid-atlantic accent. I'm sure it feels uncomfortably similar to him, but I think this is a mix of confirmation bias and the fact that radio and tv stations have long selected for 'average' sounding voices because listeners and viewers will call in to complain about voices they find annoying. Performers in this field cultivate those kind of generic voices, much as real estate agents cultivate aim for a friendly-but-bland look rather than trying to stand out individually.

I do feel for the guy a bit because voice generation is now so good that there's no reason to pay performers with a 'radio voice' for commercial voice-over or narration work in many cases, and I question the value of applying AI to fields of personal rather than industrial endeavor - was the cost of human vocalization such a drain on the economy that we are better off for automating those jobs away as quickly as possible? However, I don't buy his claim that his individual voice and way of speaking was stolen. It's just not very distinctive to me, in the same way that faces from thispersondoesnotexist.com will inevitably approximate the appearance of some real people.

Re: Radio host David Greene says Google's NotebookLM tool stole his voice

#64

Post by Bud »

csallen wrote: post #45
disposition2 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably an unpopular opinion on this forum where everyone is considering can something be done vs should something be done, but it sounds like theft to me. But I am also very anti-AI in the artistic space, because if it weren’t for humans freely providing so much artistic content, we wouldn’t have this outcome. And I believe the only end result will be less humans openly sharing knowledge, because some heavily money…

It's not theft, it's copying. Two different words, with two different meanings, and different legality, for very good reason. You can only steal things that can be taken away, which is why theft is bad, because it deprives the original owner of something they once had. Copying does not directly deprive anyone of anything. In fact it just adds more value to the world, and makes it more available to more people. Nobody…

[dead]

Re: Radio host David Greene says Google's NotebookLM tool stole his voice

#65

Post by quietsegfault »

tantalor wrote: post #25

Compare for yourself. David Greene: https://youtu.be/xYxQrLp4MQk NotebookLM: https://youtu.be/AR4dRtzFvxM I think he just has "podcast guy" voice. It's pretty generic.

Dude voice, totally. I can’t describe it other than dude voice.

Re: Radio host David Greene says Google's NotebookLM tool stole his voice

#66

Post by rectang »

tantalor wrote: post #25

Compare for yourself. David Greene: https://youtu.be/xYxQrLp4MQk NotebookLM: https://youtu.be/AR4dRtzFvxM I think he just has "podcast guy" voice. It's pretty generic.

It doesn't matter if the voice is a perfect facsimile — it only matters whether a court can be persuaded that the result is derivative.

As the article notes, the AI doesn't even have to be trained on Greene's voice for him to have a case.

> Grimmelmann said Greene doesn’t necessarily have to show definitively that Google trained NotebookLM on his voice to have a case, or even that the voice is 100 percent identical to his. He cited a 1988 case in which the singer and actress Bette Midler successfully sued Ford Motor Company over a commercial that used a voice actor to mimic her distinctive mezzo-soprano. But Greene would then have to show that enough listeners assume it’s Greene’s voice for it to affect either his reputation or his own opportunities to capitalize on it.

Re: Radio host David Greene says Google's NotebookLM tool stole his voice

#67

Post by mhuffman »

crazygringo wrote: post #38
tantalor wrote: post #25

Compare for yourself. David Greene: https://youtu.be/xYxQrLp4MQk NotebookLM: https://youtu.be/AR4dRtzFvxM I think he just has "podcast guy" voice. It's pretty generic.

Yup, it's absolutely not his voice. The NotebookLM voice is pitched significantly higher. Nor does it seem like his voice but changed "just enough" (like in pitch). I agree, he just has a very generic-sounding "podcast guy" voice. And obviously, NotebookLM trained on tons of podcasts and is generating a highly generic, average-sounding voice. Which is why it's pitched higher, since David Greene has a lower than avera…

>Yup, it's absolutely not his voice.

However it does seem to copy the the way he "lisps" his S's. I am not sure that is common 'generic-sounding "podcast guy" voice'.

Re: Radio host David Greene says Google's NotebookLM tool stole his voice

#68

Post by hluska »

mhuffman wrote: post #67
crazygringo wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, it's absolutely not his voice. The NotebookLM voice is pitched significantly higher. Nor does it seem like his voice but changed "just enough" (like in pitch). I agree, he just has a very generic-sounding "podcast guy" voice. And obviously, NotebookLM trained on tons of podcasts and is generating a highly generic, average-sounding voice. Which is why it's pitched higher, since David Greene has a lower than avera…

>Yup, it's absolutely not his voice. However it does seem to copy the the way he "lisps" his S's. I am not sure that is common 'generic-sounding "podcast guy" voice'.

When I was university, I got heavy into spoken word poetry and making hip hop. Personal Journals by Sage Francis had become a huge part of my life and rather than focus on school like a mature person I thought I’d make my own album. It turns out I have a profound lack of talent, but I got a lot of experience with a microphone.

To me that ‘s’ sound reminds me of the sibilance a Shure SM58 picks up without a pop filter. I hear a different side of the same idea on ‘p’ and ‘b’ as well.

I had a speech impediment as a youngster and the sound got in my head. Now I hear it on podcasts.

Re: Radio host David Greene says Google's NotebookLM tool stole his voice

#70

Post by crazygringo »

mhuffman wrote: post #67
crazygringo wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, it's absolutely not his voice. The NotebookLM voice is pitched significantly higher. Nor does it seem like his voice but changed "just enough" (like in pitch). I agree, he just has a very generic-sounding "podcast guy" voice. And obviously, NotebookLM trained on tons of podcasts and is generating a highly generic, average-sounding voice. Which is why it's pitched higher, since David Greene has a lower than avera…

>Yup, it's absolutely not his voice. However it does seem to copy the the way he "lisps" his S's. I am not sure that is common 'generic-sounding "podcast guy" voice'.

He almost certainly doesn't "lisp" his S's if you heard him in real life, but says them perfectly normally.

What you're hearing is the way microphones deal with the hissing of an "s", same as they struggle with plosives like "p", from the whoosh of air. It's an artifact of microphones close to the mouth, so it makes sense that Google replicates it.

You can use physical pop filters or digital audio filters to reduce the effect, but podcasters don't usually use the physical ones, and the level of audio processing podcasters do really depends on their level of expertise and how much they even care.

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