Amazon.com Inc wants to give customers the chance to make Alexa, the company’s voice assistant, sound just like their grandmother – or anyone else.
The online retailer is developing a system to let Alexa mimic any voice after hearing less than a minute of audio, said Rohit Prasad, an Amazon senior vice president, at a conference the company held in Las Vegas Wednesday. The goal is to make the memories last
after so many of us have lost someone we love
during the pandemic, Prasad said.
Amazon declined to share when it would roll out such a feature.
Jeffrey DastinIt’s one thing to make the memories last
, and quite another to constantly stir up feelings of loss and grief after the death of people we loved, and I feel quite strongly that this ‘feature’ lands squarely in the latter category. The potential for abuse through misinformation and ‘deep fakes’ is very high as well – imagine receiving a phone call with a faked voice to mimic someone you trust (and very much alive). Some restraint and more consideration for inadvertent consequences would be in order when developing technologies such as these, even if the company doesn’t have a plan for their public release yet.
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