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Amazon Alexa will be able to mimic the voice of a dead relative

By T.K. Randall
June 23, 2022 · Comment icon 8 comments

Would you want Alexa speaking in the voice of a deceased loved one ? Image Credit: Andres Urena
An upcoming feature to Amazon's popular voice assistant is straight out of an episode of 'Black Mirror'.
During Amazon's re:MARS conference recently, the online shopping giant announced that it was developing a feature that would enable its Alexa smart home assistant to speak using the voice of someone who has died.

Senior Vice President Rohit Prasad provided a demonstration of this technology by having Alexa read a bedtime story in the voice of a deceased grandmother.

Now if this all sounds a bit unsettling, then that's because it is - in fact a similar idea was used in the plot of an episode of Black Mirror, which should tell you just how weird this actually is.
According to Prasad, Alexa will be capable of learning to speak in someone's voice after listening to just one minute of recorded speech from that person.

This also suggests that the device could listen to someone's conversation and then learn how to mimic their voice, no doubt adding to the concerns many people have about having devices like this in their home.

Whether this particular feature will make it into the actual product, however, remains to be seen.

Source: Gizmodo | Comments (8)




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Recent comments on this story
Comment icon #1 Posted by Piney 2 years ago
Having it act and sound like my Black grandmother would be awesome.
Comment icon #2 Posted by jethrofloyd 2 years ago
My great-great grandfather was Napoleon Bonaparte. I can’t wait to hear Alexa sound like him.
Comment icon #3 Posted by ouija ouija 2 years ago
'Amazon Alexa will be able to mimic the voice of a dead relative' . . . . but 'she' won't, will she? I'm guessing there will be the tiniest of differences(or maybe many not-so-tiny differences), between Alexa's and the dead relative's voices that will simply jar on the ears of those who knew them. I bet there will still be a hint of the robotic in the dead relative's voice which will be spooky/creepy. I think what we should watch out for is what Amazon is actually going to use this mimicking ability for . . . . openly or secretly.
Comment icon #4 Posted by Brandonchpr 2 years ago
I don't want to get tinfoil hat over this, but I don't like the implications of a device, that openly listens to people, mimicing any real voice to any convincing degree.    Where is the line?, one has to ask. Granted it may not be crossed just yet. But its something to ponder in my opinon.
Comment icon #5 Posted by Splendor Solis 2 years ago
First of all, I don't know why anybody would want these types of devices in their homes. These looked like fun ideas in movies and TV shows about the future, when it just looked like these devices were controlled by you, but there are people who work for these companies that can listen to you. It's an object that listens to (and probably records) everything! Even when it's
Comment icon #6 Posted by Nutrition Fact 2 years ago
In other related news, your augmented contact lenses can be hacked to insert images that look real like cars on the road, people on the sidewalk and anything else that can be used to make you take swift action and ultamately sending you to your death.
Comment icon #7 Posted by Nutrition Fact 2 years ago
The list is long, I can come up with thousands of ideas concerning these new high technologies.  Anything connected to the internet is toast, dont do it.
Comment icon #8 Posted by Nutrition Fact 2 years ago
Its the complete opposite of how they depicted it in the movies and on television.


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