Planet Money AI Podcast 2.0: The host in the machine
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May 31, 2023 The podcast explores the fascinating world of AI-generated voices, illustrating how technology has evolved to convincingly replicate human speech. A playful experiment features the creation of a synthetic voice modeled after a former host. The conversation transitions into ethical questions about voice duplication, enhanced by insights from musician Grimes on AI's role in music. Humor also shines through an entertaining exchange between a human host and their AI counterpart, capturing the potential and challenges of artificial intelligence in creative fields.
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Knockoff Robert
- Planet Money tried creating a "knockoff" Robert Smith voice by cutting and pasting old recordings together.
- The result was hard to understand and not very good.
Realistic AI Voices
- AI voice technology has greatly improved, creating realistic synthetic voices.
- Examples include a synthesized conversation between Joe Rogan and Steve Jobs and an AI-generated song with Drake and The Weeknd.
Concatenative Speech
- Older text-to-speech systems sounded robotic and monotone, using a "concatenative" process.
- This involved assembling pre-recorded voice bits, similar to the Planet Money team's "knockoff" Robert.