Future of Voice Cloning: 8 use cases.

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Voice Cloning

As a tech-researcher, I was among the early adopters to experiment with voice cloning in 2019. Utilizing the power of the Descript software tool, I recorded 30 minutes of audio to create a digital replica of my voice. Fast forward to present day, advancements in voice cloning technology have significantly reduced the amount of audio needed to generate an accurate voice model, with companies like Google's Tacotron and Microsoft's Vall-E claiming to only require a few seconds of audio to clone a person's voice.

Voice cloning has opened up a world of possibilities, allowing us to generate human-like speech with the aid of a keyboard. There is, however, also a big dark side to it.

In this edition of my newsletter, we delve into 8 use cases for this rapidly evolving technology. And i'll give you my thoughts on the dark side of this technology.

Voice clone after illness or injury

Voice cloning technology can help people who have lost their natural voice due to injury or illness. Realistic synthetic voices can mimic the speech patterns, intonations, and nuances of the original speaker. They can use a keyboard to produce their own speech.

For celebrities

Thanks to voice cloning, celebrities can now have their voices replicated. This opens up new opportunities for companies to "hire" these digital voices to narrate their content, from press releases to website copy, all with the unique tone of the celebrity in question. With cloned voices, celebrities can also easily produce commercials, extending their business model with little effort.

A new brand experience in customer service

AI-powered voice cloning could be used by creating virtual customer service agents that sound like a celebrity. Imagine being greeted by the voice of Morgan Freeman as your customer service representative. This kind of human touch can elevate the customer experience to new heights.

Audiobooks, redefined

For authors, voice cloning technology streamlines the audiobook production process by eliminating the need to invest time and effort into recording their own voice in a studio.

Correcting minor imperfections

Generative AI-powered synthetic speech will assist actors and actresses in correcting minor imperfections in their recorded films. Voice Cloning can also be utilized to generate new dialogues for characters in older productions.

Advertisement

In the future, personalized audio advertisements will be available on Spotify or YouTube, featuring your first name, last name, and preferences, and even the voice of your favorite artist.

Newsreaders

With Generative AI-powered voice cloning, newsreaders can read the news 24 hours a day, as long as they are fed new texts.

Read a book

Additionally, children can choose to have a loved one, such as a parent or grandparent, read a book to them by selecting a read-aloud book on their tablet and choosing the cloned voice.

Dark Side of voice cloning

It is obvious that this voice cloning technology also can be used for criminal purposes. If in the near future someone's voice can be copied and used to make them say anything, this presents enormous opportunities for criminal activity.

Identity Fraud

The human voice is important for communication as well as identification. For example, tech blog Gizmodo described a situation where the CEO of a UK energy company thought he was speaking on the phone with the CEO of his parent company in Germany. The caller, with a German accent, convinced him to transfer €220,000 to a Hungarian account. The voice of the German CEO was actually created by an artificial intelligence system.

This type of fraud is likely to occur more frequently in the future. The technology is not yet perfect, but some financial managers may still transfer money based on a voicemail. Voice cloning fraud is still a very unknown phenomenon, just like phishing was when email was first emerging.

Blackmail or reputation damage

Politicians, celebrities, whistleblowers, journalists, and justice and police employees are naturally vulnerable to blackmail or reputation damage when voice cloning software is perfect. Their voice can then be mimicked and thus words can be put in their mouth. This can be used deliberately to cause someone to suffer reputation damage or to be blackmailed with reputation damage.

Pocket phone call

Causing reputation damage is therefore much easier with voice cloning software. For example, it sometimes happens that someone accidentally leaves their phone ringing in a jacket pocket or pants pocket. The recipient can then unintentionally listen to the voices and sounds that the sender's microphone records.

Evil-doers could generate fake versions of such telephone sound recordings, sending them from an anonymous number and suggesting with the recording that the recipient is listening to something that is not intended for their ears. For example, a journalist receives a “pocket phone call” with a revelation from a politician. A possible potential investor in a company receives a “pocket voicemail” from the existing director, speaking condescendingly about this potential investor. A fake recorded message can be sent via smartphone to a colleague, manager, or acquaintance.

Social engineering

There are many future scenarios thinkable where fake recordings of someone's voice are misused, for example to extract personal information for later cyber-hacking or a direct fraud attack. "Hey hello, this is Jarno, I'm calling from another phone because my iPhone is broken and now I'm standing at the door of our new office, what's the entrance code again? That's also in my iPhone. Just send it to me, thank you!"

It is clear: this technology brings opportunities but also threats. It's good to be aware of this!

Until the next "Signals from the future"!