Judy Garland handed away 55 years in the past — however put any doc, e-book, or file into a brand new AI app, and her voice can be what you hear studying to you.
Textual content-to-speech AI startup ElevenLabs introduced on Tuesday that its free Reader App makes use of AI cloning to copy the distinctive voices of Garland, James Dean, Burt Reynolds and Sir Laurence Olivier.
The app, which got here out final week on iOS (with preregistration open for Android), takes any PDF file, article or textual content and transforms it right into a voiceover that appears like one of many iconic voices — full with emotion and contextual understanding.
“It is thrilling to see our mom’s voice accessible to the numerous hundreds of thousands of people that love her,” Liza Minnelli, daughter of Judy Garland and consultant of the Garland Property, stated within the press launch. Minnelli added, “Our household believes that it will carry new followers to Mama.”
ElevenLabs labored with the estates of the late stars to develop the expertise.
The startup envisions customers listening to Sherlock Properties in Olivier’s voice or The Great Wizard of Oz in Garland’s voice.
Judy Garland within the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz directed by Victor Fleming. Credit score: Getty Photographs
Voice-cloning is not a brand new utility of AI, and a few of its use instances will be problematic. For instance, audio cloning has been used to aim to rip-off individuals out of cash and private info.
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ElevenLabs customers can simply create audio deepfakes, or realistic-sounding impersonations of somebody’s voice. In January 2023, the startup acknowledged that its expertise had been used “for malicious functions” and determined to place voice-cloning behind a paywall.
ElevenLabs’ security web page, as of this writing, discloses that the corporate moderates all content material by way of automated and human overview, traces content material again to anybody misusing it and experiences criminality to legislation enforcement.
Exterior of ElevenLabs, the ethicality of voice-cloning has just lately come beneath scrutiny. Scarlett Johanssen took authorized motion in opposition to ChatGPT-maker OpenAI in Might when the voice of its latest ChatGPT mannequin was “so eerily comparable” to hers that her “closest buddies and information retailers couldn’t inform the distinction.”
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