The rapid advancement in the field of artificial intelligence has made it possible for computer-generated synthetic voices to accurately mimic the human voice, the same can also lead to human voice actors losing their job to such synthetic voices in the future. Ironically, while that’s enough to make the voice artists feel insecure, they might have also contributed to the development of such synthetic voices with their own real voices. That’s because of a clause included in the contract that the authors and the audiobook distributor Findaway Voices agreed to and which enabled Findaway to let companies like Spotify and Apple use the audiobook files as machine learning training and models. Spotify went on to acquire Findaway last June.
As the Wired reported, almost all of the authors and narrators who have been associated with Findaway stated they were not aware of the controversial clause. They said it was kept hidden among other more obvious portions that deal with hate speech or sexually explicit material and how such stuff stands prohibited. That means, it is perhaps safe to assume Apple and Spotify have already had access to the voice samples and the same might have also been put to good use by the machine learning algorithms.
Fortunately, the contract with Findaway also included a backdoor clause that makes it possible for the voice artists to revoke the controversial portion of the agreement. However, it could be too late for the authors to do so as their voice samples might have already been processed by the algorithms to device artificial versions of the same. The narrators claim such a clause not only belies the trust they had imposed on the audiobook distributor but is also immoral on its part to use the narrator’s voice on the sly for creating something that can rob them of their livelihood.
As things stand at the moment, creating audiobooks using human voice actors is both time-consuming as well as costly. As such, companies are placing their bet on artificial voices to cut down on both the time and money need in producing audiobooks. Apple came up with its first synthetic audiobook narrators in January which it claimed offers a realistic listening experience that is almost at par with human narrators. It has marked such audiobooks to have been “narrated by digital voice based on a human narrator.”
Meanwhile, labor union SAG-AFTRA which stands for human narrators or other artists have entered the fray and claim to have forced Apple and Findaway to revoke their access to all voice samples of the artists for use in the machine learning process.
With a keen interest in tech, I make it a point to keep myself updated on the latest developments in technology and gadgets. That includes smartphones or tablet devices but stretches to even AI and self-driven automobiles, the latter being my latest fad. Besides writing, I like watching videos, reading, listening to music, or experimenting with different recipes. The motion picture is another aspect that interests me a lot, and I'll likely make a film sometime in the future.
