design detection

I was thinking recently, about how many audiobooks are consumed by people these days. I would guess that the main reason behind this consumption is convenience. Many people just don’t have the time, or don’t create the time, to really sit down and get their head in a book. But I understand that for many, it can also be due to personal preference, financial considerations, lack of space, being visually impaired, or learning difficulties. If non of these issues are barriers, I would always encourage reading (and ideally taking notes), rather than simply listening. On balance, the evidence does suggest that good reading is a much more efficient way of retaining information than listening, on its own. In general, listening Read More ›

Welcome to the wonderful world of voice cloning (VC).  In the same way digital technology can be used to alter photos, VC can be used to literally create speech of someone’s actual voice.  All that’s needed is a five second sample of the target speaker and you can make them say anything!  “…Researchers …are now claiming that they can clone a person’s voice using just a 5-second clip. They explain that this can be done because they have trained a neural network, what we often call artificial intelligence or machine learning, on hours and hours of a wide variety of speakers so that it understands how we speak and then it can take a 5 second clip from an individual Read More ›