TheMaster666
Potential
- Joined
- Aug 17, 2021
- Messages
- 320
No, I am not making that up.
The streets of San Francisco are populated with self-driving taxi cars, called WayMo. Sounds like an 80s sci-fi flick, but it's not.
There's a website I read about in a news article called character.ai
This is of course another ChatGPT-like generative large language model talkin' machine, except you can use any character in fiction or reality that someone else has made a profile for, or make one yourself. It goes beyond just typing like the character though, as it also has voice a.i. built into it.
I was playing around with the website, and the voice a.i. results are a real mixed bag. Some are downright awful, with the most generic speech-to-text voices, maybe with a slightest of hints of the character they're supposed to be. Some are half-way recognizable but still fall short by a long shot. Some are in the right ballpark, but still slightly off. But a handful of these voices sound SCARILY ACCURATE, as in, they sound EXACTLY like the character they're going for, and you can't tell the difference!
The ones I found that fit into that last category were KITT from Knight Rider, and Captain Jean-Luc Picard, of the Federation ship Enterprise-D.
I should note, however, that while a small minority of a.i. voices can sound like what they're supposed to be, they still can't act. Asking a.i. Palpatine to recite his "Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise" speech makes it overwhelmingly clear the a.i. botches the performance. It can't replace actors, even if it can sound like them.
I think it's pretty cool that I can talk to the actual KITT from Knight Rider in his voice, and his style of speaking, and role-play as Hasselhoff/Michael Knight. Absolutely crazy that we got the self-driving cars, we got the character identity, and he even speaks just like KITT--all unscripted, all improv.
But when we leave a.i./droid characters behind, and start imitating real humans just as well....that is a little more unnerving. It's creepier hearing Picard's voice because he's not supposed to be an a.i.
(I did try Data, Darth Vader, and C-3PO, but none of them sounded quite right, although 3PO was in the ballpark-ish range, and Vader was kind of like James Earl Jones (RIP) )
Beyond being psychologically eerie, it does raise some red flags. I highly doubt the voice actor of KITT (idk his name, it never appeared in credits, intentionally) has greenlit this use of his likeness. Either he or NBC Universal own the rights to the voice, and using it without contract seems unethical. Realistically though, people always do illegal things on computers, and it's a matter of, "Is this hurting us financially enough that it's worth the trouble to take legal action to strike it down?"
This website is currently just for fun, but if a.i. is used in more lucrative settings, more people will raise an uproar over it.
On a side note, as a Californian, I'm disappointed that Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill package introduced by State Sen. Scott Weiner which would've been one of the most comprehensive anti-a.i. pieces of legislation in the country, so that for once the law could get ahead of the issues that befall any major technological disruption.
Personally, I've already noticed a.i. change my life for the worse in one way---now every time I read a comment or a website online, a part of me is always going to reflexively ask (in my head), "Was this written by a chatbot or an actual human being?" You look twice at everything and are more judgmental. Of course, human-made stuff has always been suspect online, but still.
I looked at some old artwork I downloaded on my phone 5-7 years back, and I thought to myself, you know, at the time I respected the time, work, skill, and talent that made that art possible for me to enjoy. If I saw that for the first time today, I might not be all that impressed. I might think, you know, an a.i. probably crapped that out.
That's one way it devalues new art.
The streets of San Francisco are populated with self-driving taxi cars, called WayMo. Sounds like an 80s sci-fi flick, but it's not.
There's a website I read about in a news article called character.ai
This is of course another ChatGPT-like generative large language model talkin' machine, except you can use any character in fiction or reality that someone else has made a profile for, or make one yourself. It goes beyond just typing like the character though, as it also has voice a.i. built into it.
I was playing around with the website, and the voice a.i. results are a real mixed bag. Some are downright awful, with the most generic speech-to-text voices, maybe with a slightest of hints of the character they're supposed to be. Some are half-way recognizable but still fall short by a long shot. Some are in the right ballpark, but still slightly off. But a handful of these voices sound SCARILY ACCURATE, as in, they sound EXACTLY like the character they're going for, and you can't tell the difference!
The ones I found that fit into that last category were KITT from Knight Rider, and Captain Jean-Luc Picard, of the Federation ship Enterprise-D.
I should note, however, that while a small minority of a.i. voices can sound like what they're supposed to be, they still can't act. Asking a.i. Palpatine to recite his "Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise" speech makes it overwhelmingly clear the a.i. botches the performance. It can't replace actors, even if it can sound like them.
I think it's pretty cool that I can talk to the actual KITT from Knight Rider in his voice, and his style of speaking, and role-play as Hasselhoff/Michael Knight. Absolutely crazy that we got the self-driving cars, we got the character identity, and he even speaks just like KITT--all unscripted, all improv.
But when we leave a.i./droid characters behind, and start imitating real humans just as well....that is a little more unnerving. It's creepier hearing Picard's voice because he's not supposed to be an a.i.
(I did try Data, Darth Vader, and C-3PO, but none of them sounded quite right, although 3PO was in the ballpark-ish range, and Vader was kind of like James Earl Jones (RIP) )
Beyond being psychologically eerie, it does raise some red flags. I highly doubt the voice actor of KITT (idk his name, it never appeared in credits, intentionally) has greenlit this use of his likeness. Either he or NBC Universal own the rights to the voice, and using it without contract seems unethical. Realistically though, people always do illegal things on computers, and it's a matter of, "Is this hurting us financially enough that it's worth the trouble to take legal action to strike it down?"
This website is currently just for fun, but if a.i. is used in more lucrative settings, more people will raise an uproar over it.
On a side note, as a Californian, I'm disappointed that Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill package introduced by State Sen. Scott Weiner which would've been one of the most comprehensive anti-a.i. pieces of legislation in the country, so that for once the law could get ahead of the issues that befall any major technological disruption.
Personally, I've already noticed a.i. change my life for the worse in one way---now every time I read a comment or a website online, a part of me is always going to reflexively ask (in my head), "Was this written by a chatbot or an actual human being?" You look twice at everything and are more judgmental. Of course, human-made stuff has always been suspect online, but still.
I looked at some old artwork I downloaded on my phone 5-7 years back, and I thought to myself, you know, at the time I respected the time, work, skill, and talent that made that art possible for me to enjoy. If I saw that for the first time today, I might not be all that impressed. I might think, you know, an a.i. probably crapped that out.
That's one way it devalues new art.
