You don't know what voice cloning is and what it can be used for? These people made it even easier to do. That's their achievement. Facilitating fraud, confusion and distrust.
> You don't know what voice cloning is and what it can be used for?
* Real-time translation of a user's voice, maintaining emotion and intonation
* Professional-quality audio from cheap microphone setups (for video tutorials, indie games, etc.)
* Allowing those with speech impairments to communicate using their natural voice again, or:
* Allowing those uncomfortable with their natural voice to communicate closer to how they wish to be perceived
* Customization of voice assistants, such as to use a native accent/dialect
* Movies, podcasts, audiobooks, news broadcasts, etc. made available in a huge range of languages
* And of course: memes, satire, and parody
I also think it opens the door for entirely new kinds of media, but it's hard to foresee exactly what will take off and what will die a gimmick. Maybe immersive-sims where characters can respond intelligently to anything you throw at them? Maybe personalized movies, like the ability to direct scenes yourself?
Most of that can be (and a lot of it was) resolved with artificial voices. There's no need for voice cloning, and certainly no need to make it widely accessible.
> Most of that can be (and a lot of it was) resolved with artificial voices
Existing artificial voices don't even attempt to tackle many of the points and are very clearly a poor substitute (watching a movie dubbed by Alexa?) even in the scenarios where they could be used - far from "resolved". If taking a binary view that it's already technically possible and therefore isn't relevant, I could claim the same of scams.
Given you initially claimed "no positive" but here only take issue to "most" applications listed, do you admit that there are some positives - even if you believe them to be outweighed by negatives?
> certainly no need to make it widely accessible
If it exists but isn't widely accessible, it's likely in the hands of Musk/Zuck and or various state actors. To me that seems the worst alternative - to have a public generally unaware that it's possible and receiving few of the benefits listed, yet still having it available as a tool for competent disinformation.
Adobe did the same thing years ago and never released it, because there's nothing productive you can do with it if it's not proven to be one's own voice that you have control over.
