Connect with us

Tech

Speechless voice artists see unregulated AI gagging their livelihoods

Published

on

With technology executives and government officials voicing concerns about the unregulated use of artificial intelligence (AI) posing a threat to human jobs, singers and voice artists have also joined the fray demanding regulation as they fear they will be made redundant by the technology.

Mario Filio, a Mexican artist who has done voiceovers for Hollywood star Will Smith, the Obi-Wan Kenobi character in Star Wars and the party-loving lemur King Julien in the animated movie “Madagascar” said: “We’re fighting a very big monster.”

With the campaign slogan “Don’t steal our voices,” more than 20 voiceover artists, associations and unions from Europe, the US and Latin America have formed a coalition named United Voice Artists, representing faceless voiceover artists and narrators of commercials, movies, audiobooks and video games — fearing that they will be replaced by machines, or even cloned by AI without consent.

The group said: “The undiscriminating and unregulated use of [AI] is a risk that could lead to the extinction of an artistic heritage of creativity and wonder, an asset that machines cannot generate.”

The group maintained that its members include the US National Association of Voice Actors (NAVA) and Latin America’s Organization of United Voices.

“Our voices are our livelihood,” NAVA vice president Carin Gilfry said in a statement last month.

“And if we don’t have control over how those voices are used, we can’t make a living,” she added.

These artists were already fighting with text-to-speech technology that turns written words into synthetic voices.

Now AI has renewed fears as machine learning technology can compare a voice sample with millions of existing ones, identifying patterns to generate a similar one.

“It’s fed by voices that we’ve been providing for years,” said Dessiree Hernandez, president of the Mexican Association of Commercial Announcers.

“We’re talking about the right to use your voice without your consent,” she added.

Replaced by AI?

Different platforms allow human-sounding text-to-speech services for a part of what they pay to other voiceover artists.

According to one platform, it does not intend to replace human voiceovers but to offer a quicker and cheaper alternative.

Though the artists are still being hired, voice actors are wary that companies are using their voices to build up their archives.

The artists are seeking tools to track their voices in the face of sophisticated piracy and calling for regulation to prevent recordings of their voices from being used to develop AI without their permission. They also are asking for setting up support quotas for human voiceovers, said Colombian voice artist Daniel Soler de la Prada.

“In the future, audiences could hear a famous actor’s voice in several languages but with the intonation of a dubbing artist,” Filio said.

While that could generate employment and benefits for the public, voice artists “need to charge what’s fair,” he added.

Mexican voice artist Maclovia Gonzalez said that “she would only sign a contract with an AI company if it provided enough information about how the content would be used.”

“I want to be part of this revolution, but not at any price,” she said.

Art Dubbing, a company that has received several requests from clients to use synthetic voices, faces a dilemma: “Adapt or disappear,” said its Mexican founder, Anuar Lopez de la Pena.

Filio for his part said that he stopped recording for many clients for fear of hurting his colleagues’ livelihoods.

But he is skeptical that AI will replace voice actors completely because the machines have “no soul,” he added.

Latest News

Cybersecurity firm reports exposure of sensitive DeepSeek data on the internet.

Published

on

By

The New York-based cybersecurity firm Wiz has discovered a cache of sensitive data from the Chinese artificial intelligence business DeepSeek that was mistakenly exposed to the public internet.

In a blog post released on Wednesday, Wiz reported that examinations of DeepSeek’s infrastructure revealed that the company had inadvertently exposed over a million lines of unencrypted data. The materials were digital software keys and chat logs that seemingly documented prompts transmitted from consumers to the company’s complimentary AI assistant.

The chief technical officer of Wiz stated that DeepSeek promptly safeguarded the data following the notice from his organisation.

“It was removed in under an hour,” stated Ami Luttwak. “However, this was exceedingly easy to locate, leading us to believe we are not the sole discoverers.”

DeepSeek did not promptly respond to a request for comment.

DeepSeek’s rapid success after the introduction of its AI helper has exhilarated China and incited concern in America. The Chinese company’s evident capacity to rival OpenAI’s skills at a significantly reduced cost has raised concerns regarding the viability of the business models and profit margins of U.S. AI behemoths like Nvidia and Microsoft.

By Monday, it surpassed the U.S. competitor ChatGPT in downloads from Apple’s App Store, prompting a worldwide decline in technology stocks.

Continue Reading

Latest News

WhatsApp launches bulk channel management functionality

Published

on

By

WhatsApp has initiated testing of a bulk channel administration feature on iOS for select beta users, enabling the simultaneous selection of many channels, hence enhancing the efficiency of managing following channels.

This essential update enables users to perform bulk activities, including muting many channels simultaneously, designating them as read, and altering notifications. If the chosen channels are muted, users will now have the option to activate notifications. Users can swiftly silence unmuted channels in one action.

Additionally, this feature enables users to unfollow many channels simultaneously, thereby optimizing the process of decluttering their channel list. This change is particularly beneficial for users that oversee numerous subscriptions, as reported by WABetaInfo.

Previously, users were required to manage each channel individually, rendering tasks such as muting or designating channels as read laborious and time-consuming.

The functionality provides enhanced flexibility and control over channel subscriptions, enabling users to efficiently manage notifications. The solution streamlines laborious operations for consumers who subscribe to numerous channels, hence enhancing their entire experience.

Accessibility
The bulk management feature is presently accessible exclusively to a limited number of beta testers who installed the latest WhatsApp beta for iOS using the TestFlight application. WhatsApp, owned by Meta, plans to expand the feature’s availability to a larger user base in the next weeks.

This update demonstrates WhatsApp’s dedication to enhancing user experience by offering a clear and efficient method for managing channels and notifications.

Continue Reading

Latest News

Pakistani internet slowdown: ongoing submarine cable issue

Published

on

By

Even after two weeks, the global submarine cable AAA-1 problem that was discovered on January 2 near Qatar has not been fixed, causing sluggish internet connection in several Pakistani towns.

According to a representative for Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL), the issue has affected customers’ capacity to effectively access social media applications and browse the online. Even with initiatives to fix the problem, social networking sites still lag during busy times.

Internet traffic has been redirected via alternate channels to lessen the impact, and more capacity has been set up to stabilize the service.

The PTCL representative promised that “Internet service across the country is operating normally, and there will be no issues with web browsing,” noting that social media applications’ lag is common during

Continue Reading

Trending