Amazon’s virtual assistant technology, Alexa, will soon be able to mimic anyone’s voice – including those who have passed away.
The tech company has said it is developing a system which will let Alexa mimic any voice after hearing less than a minute of audio. This means Alex will be able to tell you stories, turn on the lights or play music copying a voice of your choice.
Speaking during Amazon’s re:MARS conference in Las Vegas on Wednesday (June 22), Amazon’s Senior Vice President and Head Scientist of Alexa – Rohit Prasad – said the technology aims to “make the memories last” after “so many of us have lost someone we love” during the pandemic.
The feature was also demonstrated at the conference in a video segment where a young child asks “Alexa, can grandma finish reading me the Wizard of Oz?”
A moment later, Alexa follows the command and changes its voice.
According to TechCrunch+, Prasad said: “This required inventions where we had to learn to produce a high-quality voice with less than a minute of recording versus hours of recording in the studio.
“The way we made it happen is by framing the problem as a voice conversion task and not a speech generation path.
“We are unquestionably living in the golden era of artificial intelligence, where our dreams and science fictions are becoming a reality.”
Prasad didn’t provide a date of when the feature will be launched for Amazon users.
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