Soon your loved ones who have passed away can"come back" through Amazon!
See also: USA: Will Amazon run out of workers in two years?
Amazon announced at the re:MARS conference that it is working on a feature that can synthesize short audio clips of a person's voice and then reprogram it as a longer speech. Amazon senior vice president and chief scientist for Alexa, Rohit Prasad , showed a demonstration where " the voice of a deceased loved one, a grandmother in this case, is used to read her grandson a bedtime story. "
Prasad noted that the company can create this kind of sound using just a minute of speech, before continuing: “The way we did it is by framing the effort as a voice conversion task rather than a speech generation path.”
There aren't many more details beyond this initial demonstration of Alexa's new capability. Reuters reports that Prahad said the goal of this technology is to "make memories last" since "so many of us have lost someone we love," which makes it seem pretty intense.
See also: Proteus: The "first fully autonomous mobile robot" in Amazon warehouses
It's reminiscent of Takara Tomy's smart speaker , which could mimic a parent's voice at bedtime, so they can read to their children even when they're not around. It's a convenient idea for parents who travel frequently for work or are simply tired of reading the same book every night. But it raises the question of whether a deepfake copy of someone's voice can offer the same comfort and security as the person's physical presence.
To that end, this kind of technology also raises other questions, such as what kind of emotions a person would experience hearing the voice of a loved one who died from COVID or another terminal illness. And how will this interaction with the deceased work for someone trying to cope with their loss? Does it interrupt the process or help it?
Of course, there is always the security of deep fake impersonation, although it is not clear how the voice samples will be stored.
See also: Amazon: Product deliveries by drones will soon begin
Amazon's re:MARS conference is intended to highlight the company's efforts, which include Alexa functionality. "MARS" stands for machine learning, automation, robotics, and space. Amazon is expected to share more news at its conference in Las Vegas in the coming days.
