Yeah, it's certanly not going that way:
Also, where's the example?
I never responded SORRY. I tried exporting it and PJ wouldn't take it, but I'll give it another whirl tonight. Between this and your latest video reply
@Laurence, it's clear we're fast approaching scary amounts of power.
And,
@Gasur, I hate seeing that. Especially because one of my best friends is finally getting liftoff on his narrating career, it's lifted his spirits and given him something to be proud of. It's just... the voice technology is that good now. We use it for auto attendants at my job for multiple languages and there's no way in hell we'd pay to go to the trouble of offering multiple languages if it wasn't available through AI. I've positively scared myself with a voice model I made of myself. I really don't think I could tell the difference in controlled circumstances.
But do I want an algorithm reading an entire novel to me? Movies with no human touch? Fuck no.
I have such mixed feelings about all of it, because I think artists and professionals should be able to use these tools to
enhance their work. It's great for iterating through ideas quickly, artificially creating moments of "oh shit that's actually kind of brilliant" to run with, for helping people find information in an easily digestible way, and with voice dubbing specifically we could dramatically reduce language barriers worldwide to improve the lives of normal people even in the developing world. But the people with power didn't skip a beat in going right to "REPLACE HUMANS NOW AND TAKE 100% OF VALUE!" even as the technology is still in its infancy.
I don't think we have leaders (in the West, anyway) that have the thoughtfulness and expertise to help navigate this. We don't have a culture that values these conversations or anything that isn't immediate revenue. It sucks.
I'm very hesitant when I see calls to ban it all because if that happens, it just means the government and war contractors and their donors will have exclusive access and lie about using it. I have no doubt we'd get the short end of the stick. Realistically the best I can hope for is that the open-source, free software world keeps up and does work that governments should be doing to educate and give equitable access.
Sorry that was long dd
SATURDAY BONUS RANT: The other and existentially more significant issue is the environmental cost of this kind of power. It's disgusting what tech companies are doing in this gluttonous race towards converting WATER and fossil fuels to blockchains and luxury data analytics and multimedia generation. We can't just enjoy something anymore, you know? We have to scale it up to a million and generate profits immediately!! It's so unnecessary.
But not to throw the baby out with the bathwater: we could absolutely be using this stuff without raping the earth faster than usual. You don't need to colonize a chunk of Uruguay to run a language learning model on your own computer. There's
open-source solutions (that I'm too lazy to try today) for dubbing that just require the hardware in your own computer and about as much electricity as a typical video game. Are you going to revolutionize the world and become mega rich with this? No. But fuck we normies need a leg up, and I want people to be able to scam capital with them! Hold two jobs in secret, use LLMs to write all your mandatory LinkedIn bullshit, and use a voice model of yourself to avoid all phone calls from customers. Win!