Key Takeaways:
- The artificial intelligence voice cloner from ElevenLabs is under fire after trolls used the tool to create deep fakes featuring celebrity voices making racist statements and calling for violence.
- The start-up has announced plans to introduce additional safeguards to prevent further misuse of the technology.
- Microsoft’s VALL-E, another AI-powered text-to-speech synthesis tool, has also been criticized for its potential to be misused by cybercriminals for scamming and fraudulent purposes.
ElevenLabs’ Prime Voice AI Voice Cloner, the latest AI advancement in voice synthesis, is making headlines for all the wrong reasons. The tool, which allows people to upload recordings of anyone speaking and generate an artificial voice, has been misused by internet trolls on the image-based bulletin board website 4chan to create deep fakes featuring well-known personalities making offensive statements.
Renowned celebrities such as David Attenborough, Emma Watson, Joe Rogan, James Cameron, Tom Cruise, and even Joe Biden have been targeted in the deep fakes, which have generated widespread outrage on social media.
In response to the controversy, ElevenLabs has announced plans to implement additional safeguards to prevent further misuse of the technology. The firm’s current plan includes additional account verifications, verifying copyright to the voice by submitting a sample with prompt text, and manually verifying each cloning request.
While ElevenLabs aims to give people access to “compelling, rich and lifelike voices” for storytelling, the company has acknowledged that the technology has the potential to be misused. In a tweet, the company said, “While we can trace back any generated audio back to the user, we’d like to address this by implementing additional safeguards.”
Crazy weekend – thank you to everyone for trying out our Beta platform. While we see our tech being overwhelmingly applied to positive use, we also see an increasing number of voice cloning misuse cases. We want to reach out to Twitter community for thoughts and feedback!
— ElevenLabs (@elevenlabsio) January 30, 2023
Microsoft’s VALL-E, another AI-powered text-to-speech synthesis tool, has also been criticized for its potential to be misused by cybercriminals for scamming and fraudulent purposes. The technology, which can clone a person’s voice after hearing them speak for just three seconds, has been described as “impressive” but with “potential risks in misuse.”
FAQ:
- What is ElevenLabs’ Prime Voice AI Voice Cloner?
- It is an AI-powered voice synthesis tool that allows people to upload recordings of anyone speaking and generate an artificial voice.
- What has happened to the tool?
- The tool has been misused by internet trolls to create deep fakes featuring celebrity voices making racist statements and calling for violence.
- What is ElevenLabs doing in response to the controversy?
- The start-up has announced plans to introduce additional safeguards to prevent further misuse of the technology, including additional account verifications, verifying copyright to the voice, and manually verifying each cloning request.
- What is Microsoft’s VALL-E?
- VALL-E is another AI-powered text-to-speech synthesis tool created by Microsoft.
- What are the criticisms against VALL-E?
- The technology has been criticized for its potential to be misused by cybercriminals for scamming and fraudulent purposes.
