Amazon wants to bring dead people back to life: new technology for Alexa alerted users

Amazon is developing new technology for its Alexa assistant that will be able to imitate the voice of any person, dead or alive, using less than a minute of recorded audio. The edition told in more detail Yahoo!.

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At the company's Re:Mars conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, on June 22, Amazon Senior Vice President and Chief Scientist Rohit Prasad demonstrated the feature using a video of a child asking an Amazon device, "Alexa, can grandma finish reading The Wizard of Oz to me?" "?"

Alexa acknowledges the request with her default automatic voice and then immediately switches to the human, soft and kind tone of the baby's grandmother.

During the demonstration, Prasad noted that the feature could be used to memorialize a deceased family member. “Many of us have lost those we love,” he said. “Modern reality has pushed us to make artificial conversations a core business of the company.”

“And although this will not relieve you of the pain of loss, it will definitely help to prolong good memories,” Prasad is sure.

But, despite the uplifting emotional nature of the presentation, the new features of Alexa caused a sharp reaction from some representatives of the technology world. They saw mimicry not only as a means of emotional connection, but also as an ideal tool for deepfakes, criminal scams, and other nefarious purposes.

Technology

An Amazon spokesperson said Prasad's presentation was based on Amazon's text-to-speech research, which the company is investigating using the latest advances in technology.

On the subject: How to listen to everything that Alexa Assistant recorded in your home

“We have learned how to produce high quality voice with much less data compared to recording in a professional studio,” the spokesperson said.

The voice simulation feature is currently in development and the company has not revealed when it intends to release it to the general public.

The new voice-to-speech technology will only take "less than a minute of recorded audio" to create a high-quality voice, according to Amazon's vice president.

This technology could become ubiquitous one day, and Prasad noted that it could be used to build trust between users and their devices.

“The one thing that surprised me the most about Alexa was the friendship we have with her. In this role, the human qualities of empathy are key to building trust,” he stressed.

Concerns

While the new impersonation feature is groundbreaking, it has raised concerns, including among companies in the field, that it could be used for nefarious purposes.

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Microsoft, which also created voice simulation technology to help people with speech impairments, has limited the segments of its business that can use the technology. Natasha Crampton, chief artificial intelligence officer at Microsoft, said the company fears that innovation will be used to create fakes.

The new feature is causing concern on the Internet as well.

“Remember when we told you that deepfakes would exacerbate the mistrust, alienation, and epistemological crisis that has already begun in this culture? Now it will be much more,” says Twitter user @wolven.

Some fear that scammers will be able to easily use this technology to their advantage.

Mike Butcher, editor of TechCrunch ClimateTech noted, "Alexa impersonating a dead family member sounds like a recipe for deep psychological damage." Others advised people to stop buying the device entirely.

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