ElevenLabs Adds Celebrity Voice AI to New Digital Narrator — But Is It Safe?

Per week in the past, ElevenLabs, a voice AI startup based by former Google and Palantir engineers, made headlines with its first main consumer-facing product, the Reader app.

The product, which is at the moment obtainable for iOS, is a specialised voice-over resolution that converts any textual content file or hyperlink from the Web into an AI sound narrated by a wide range of AI voices and accents. At present, the corporate introduced that it’s increasing this in-app voice library to incorporate the AI ​​voices of Hollywood celebrities Judy Garland, James Dean, Burt Reynolds and Sir Laurence Olivier.

The corporate has partnered with CMG Worldwide, a agency that manages and protects the mental property rights of dwelling and deceased celebrities, to revive and launch iconic voices. As well as, he plans to construct on this work with many well-known AI voices which are scheduled to launch within the coming months.

Reader offers a man-made intelligence voice to any digital textual content

Whereas ElevenLabs particularly targeted on the inventive business with AI fashions for text-to-speech and speech, dubbing, and sound results, Reader offers a extra tailor-made kind to its analysis in text-to-speech. house. All of the person must do is present a hyperlink or file for any digital textual content – whether or not it is an article, PDF, e-newsletter or 300-page e-book – and the app will immediately course of the textual content and begin AI voice-over narration with a inexperienced marker that follows and highlights each phrase spoken by synthetic intelligence.

The function is on the market in English, although customers can customise their expertise by selecting from 11 voices and accents, from male to feminine, from American to Austrian to British English. Now launching in the present day, Iconic voices enhances this expertise, permitting customers to find and expertise content material within the voice of the deceased.

Think about a person having the ability to hearken to The Fantastic Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum within the voice of the late Judy Garland, who starred within the movie adaptation of the novel.

For relations of the deceased, AI-powered voice copy is a chance to make sure that celebrities’ legacies reside on, with current followers in a position to reconnect with them and new-age customers to find them. In the meantime, for ElevenLabs, the announcement is predicted to result in extra engagement with the brand new app.

“Judy Garland, James Dean, Burt Reynolds and Sir Laurence Olivier are a few of the most well-known actors in historical past. We deeply respect their legacy and are honored to have their voices as a part of our platform,” mentioned Dustin Clean, Head of Partnerships at ElevenLabs. “Including them to our rising roster of storytellers is a crucial step ahead in our mission to make content material accessible in each language and voice “.

Are these AI voices secure from abuse?

One of many greatest issues with voice cloning expertise – such because the one being developed right here – is that recreating the voices of well-known folks could make them sound like they’re saying issues they’d by no means say in the actual world. The Biden Robocall incident is the most important instance of such an issue. Likewise, what if the CEO’s voice was cloned to make him say issues that would probably discredit them or their firm?

ElevenLabs says it understands these issues and is dedicated to increasing the partnership for the long-lasting voice function with a particular deal with safety.

Sam Sklar, head of development advertising at ElevenLabs, instructed VentureBeat that the corporate retains full management over the superstar voices and makes them obtainable solely within the Reader app, which was designed in order that customers can convert digital textual content into an AI narrative for particular person consumption solely — reasonably than additional sharing or downloading.

“For instance, with the Reader app, you may choose an article on VentureBeat and select Judy Garland to relate it only for you. You can’t entry her voice via the ElevenLabs Voice Library (the corporate’s separate net product). This implies they can’t be used together with our typical text-to-speech instruments on the platform, and the content material they converse can’t be downloaded or shared via the Reader app,” he defined.

If a person downloads malicious content material as textual content to document their iconic voice narration via a secondary system, the corporate will not even create an AI voiceover. It has positioned automated and human moderation processes in place to establish and block hate speech and different types of textual content that violate its phrases of service.

As for the potential for the voice library to be misused to clone superstar voices from scratch, Sklar says the platform was constructed with a number of safety measures in place, together with a voice captcha verify that matches the audio samples uploaded for cloning to the person’s voice recording. If the voice doesn’t match after a number of makes an attempt, the cloning request isn’t processed. There’s additionally a “banned voices” coverage that prohibits the cloning of voices which are thought of excessive danger.

“Any try to clone these voices might be blocked,” Sklyar mentioned.

Though these measures cut back the probability of cloning the voices of celebrities, actors and enterprise leaders, circumstances of infringement should still happen. For instance, malicious customers can create content material for the Reader program in such a approach that it bypasses the moderation measures established by the corporate.

In the long run, it is going to be attention-grabbing to see how cult voices positioned as a fan and fanatic providing will have an effect on the business. The Reader app that homes it should roll out globally and to Android units this summer time. Assist for extra languages ​​can also be on the best way.