OpenAI is making its foray into the voice assistant business and also showing off new technology that can clone a person’s voice, AP reported. However, the ChatGPT creator has said it will not release it publicly due to security concerns.
On Friday, the Sam Altman-led AI giant unveiled its new Voice Engine technology, claiming that it can recreate an individual’s voice with just 15 seconds of recording, the report added.
The company has said it is planning to preview the Voice
Engine with early testers but will not widely release at this time due to dangers of a possible misuse.
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“We recognize that generating speech that resembles people’s voices has serious risks, which are especially top of mind in an election year,” the San Francisco company said in a statement.
In New Hampshire, the law enforcement authorities are investigating robocalls sent to thousands of voters just before the presidential primary that featured an AI-generated voice mimicking President Joe Biden.
The AI-generated call, the brainchild of an operative for Minnesota congressman Dean Phillips, featured what sounded like Biden’s voice urging people not to cast ballots in January’s New Hampshire primary.
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A number of startup companies already sell voice-cloning technology, some of which is accessible to the public or for select business customers such as entertainment studios.
According to the company, the early Voice Engine testers have agreed to not impersonate a person without their consent and to disclose that the voices are AI-generated.
OpenAI took a similar approach in announcing but not widely releasing its video-generator Sora. But a trademark application filed on March 19 shows that OpenAI likely aims to get into the business of speech recognition and digital voice assistant. Eventually, improving such technology could help OpenAI compete with the likes of other voice products such as Amazon’s Alexa.