Earlier right now, Samsung introduced (opens in new tab) a brand new characteristic for its cellular assistant Bixby: it could actually now create AI-generated copies of customers’ voices. It’s possible you’ll be questioning, “What is the use case for that?” Because it seems, you need to use this vocal reproduction to take calls and messages in your behalf — an ideal software when you do not feel like speaking to your youngsters, ex-wife, or invoice collectors.
The official title of the characteristic is Bixby’s Customized Voice Creator. To get began, you need to file a number of sentences for Bixby. With some AI magic, it’ll analyze your speech and create an AI-generated duplication of your voice, together with your distinctive inflections and tone.
Is Bixby’s AI a bit creepy?
We have been listening to quite a bit about AI currently, together with ChatGPT and Replika (i.e., a romantic AI companion). I discover myself questioning if it is all a bit creepy. Bixby’s AI-based voice duplication characteristic could turn out to be useful when you’re dodging debt collectors, however might it trigger actual hurt?
As we have seen many instances with the arrival of recent expertise, menace actors typically manipulate it for their very own egocentric benefit — or to malign others. As such, I’ve a number of questions. Does Samsung have entry to your AI-generated voice or voice knowledge? In that case, what occurs if that knowledge will get leaked? What if somebody makes use of your AI-generated voice reproduction to name your co-workers, mates, members of the family, enterprise companions, and different family members, to wreak havoc in your life?
What if Bixby goes haywire and begins answering all of your calls, conversing with individuals you by no means meant to?
On prime of that, think about if we transitioned right into a world through which AI bots take over our private interactions. It simply feels considerably disconnected and chilly.
AI expertise hasn’t been perfected but, so one thing is certain to go awry. I do not know if I can belief a bot to deal with my day-to-day affairs. All of us discover robocalls annoying, so how can we open up to Bixby, a glorified robocaller in and of itself?
Solely time will inform whether or not my considerations could manifest into actuality, however because it stands now, I am skeptical.
The brand new Bixby characteristic will roll out to Samsung customers someday in February through a software program replace.
