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Amazon Alexa will be able to imitate the voice of a deceased loved one

(CNN Business)The latest version of Amazon's Alexa Voice Assistant may sound creepy.

On Wednesday, the company is working on an update to the Alexa system that will allow technology to imitate any voice at its annual re: MARS conference focused on artificial intelligence innovation. I announced that. A member of the deceased family.

In the video shown on stage,Amazon (AMZN)is Alexa's signature voice reading. Instead, a story to a boy who showed how to do it, it was the voice of his grandmother.

Amazon's Senior Vice President Rohit Prasad said the updated system collects enough audio data from less than a minute of audio instead of someone spending hours recording. A studio like the way it used to be, said it can enable personalization. Prasad didn't elaborate on when this feature will be released. Amazon refused to comment on the timeline.

This concept is exploring new ways to add "human attributes" to artificial intelligence, especially "in such a pandemic era when many of us have lost loved ones." It is derived from. .. "AI can't get rid of the pain of that loss, but it can definitely make their memory last longer."

Amazon has long been Samuel L. Jackson, Melissa McCarthy. , Shaquille O'Neal has spoken to Alexa using recognizable voices such as the real voice. However, AI reproduction of people's voices has also improved over the past few years, especially with the use of AI and deepfake techniques. For example, the three lines of Anthony Bourdain's documentary "Road Runner," which sounds like it was said by a late media personality, were generated by AI. (This particular case caused a fuss because the movie didn't reveal that the dialog was generated by AI and wasn't approved by Bourdain's real estate). "You can later have a documentary ethics panel about it," director Morgan Nevilletold theNew Yorker when the film debuted last year.
Val Kilmer, an actor who recently lost his voice due to laryngeal cancer, has partnered with startup Sonantic to create an AI-driven voice for him in the new Top Gun: Maverick movie. did. According to Variety, the company used Kilmer's archived audio footage to teach algorithms how to speak like an actor.

Adam Wright, senior analyst at IDC Research, said he believes Amazon's efforts are worthwhile.

"I think we're interested in this because Amazon has the features and technology and is constantly looking for ways to improve the smart assistant and smart home experience," Wright said. increase. "I'm still not sure if it promotes a deeper connection with Alexa or if it's a skill that some people sometimes get involved with."

Amazon's personalized Alexa advance into the voice Can suffer the most from the uncanny valley effect. It reproduces a voice that is very similar to the voice of a loved one, but is not completely correct, leading to rejection by real humans.

“There are certainly some risks, such as when the voice and the resulting AI interaction do not match the memory of the individual's loved one,” says Michel Inouye of ABI Research. "For some, this would be seen as creepy or terrible at all, but for others, perhaps for the first time, in some way, the example given by letting the child hear the voice of his grandparents. It can be seen in a more profound way, as it is not a rigorous record from the past. "

However, he said that various reactions to such announcements were made by society over the next few years. I believe it speaks to the promise of innovation and how we must adapt to its ultimate reality.

"There is definitely a lot of these types of experiments and trials, at least until they get higher levels of comfort or they become more mainstream," he said. Says. He said.