Meta Says its New Speech-generating AI Tool is Too Dangerous to Release
upstart writes:
Meta says its new speech-generating AI tool is too dangerous to release:
Meta has unveiled a new AI tool, dubbed 'Voicebox', which it claims represents a breakthrough in AI-powered speech generation. However, the company won't be unleashing it on the public just yet - because doing so could be disastrous.
Voicebox is currently able to produce audio clips of speech in six languages (all of which are European of origin), and - according to a blog post from Meta - is the first AI model of its kind capable of completing tasks beyond what it was 'specifically trained to accomplish'. Meta claims that Voicebox handily outperforms competing speech-generation AIs in virtually every area.
So what exactly is it capable of? Well, for starters, it can spew out reasonably accurate text-to-speech replications of a person's voice using a sample audio file as short as two seconds, a seemingly innocuous ability that holds a huge amount of destructive potential in the wrong hands.
[...] Meta clearly believes its new tool is good enough to fool at least the majority of people [since] it's explicitly not releasing Voicebox to the public, but instead publishing a research paper and detailing a classifier tool that can identify Voicebox-generated speech from real human speech. Meta describes the classifier as "highly effective" - though notably not perfectly effective.
[...] A little caution, patience, and respect for the magnitude of this technology is a welcome sight - although I doubt Meta will sit on Voicebox for too long, since the shareholders will no doubt be wondering how much money it can make them...
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