Digital media is taking off in a big way recently. Thanks to increasingly advanced technologies and advancements in artificial intelligence, people are able to produce amazingly sophisticated digital products that reach greater and greater numbers of people worldwide. One of the groundbreaking new technologies that is making waves is voice cloning. AI Voice cloning for translation allows people to recreate extremely realistic sounding productions from voice samples and distribute them to global audiences as if they were created by native speakers of the target languages.
However, there are several potential dangers present in the use of the technology, and these are also things that users should be acutely aware of. In the following sections, we will explore how voice cloning is changing the shape of media globally, and also provide an overview of things that you should look out for when you use it.
What is digital media voice cloning technology?
Voice cloning technology is a revolutionary new technological advancement that allows people to replicate the exact sounds of people’s voices. These programs are able to produce such refined synthetic voices when you clone someone’s voice from voice data by means of AI generated content that it can sometimes be impossible to distinguish the speech patterns of an artificially-produced voice and a real one. The beauty of voice cloning technology is that it can be used for translations into other languages, thereby allowing media to reach people in all corners of the world in multiple languages. This applies both to major world languages, and also minority ones. For people who have had to listen to media in colonial languages that don’t really address them on a personal level, this technology can make a major difference for them. Once producers learn how to use it, it can be applied to any language on the planet. It is truly bringing the world of international media to everyone.
How difficult is it to clone a person’s voice, and what is required?
Cloning voices from voice actors is not that difficult if you have the right setup for voice recordings. For one thing, you need certain pieces of hardware and software. If you cannot get access to these things, it is better to use a professional service such as the Rask AI platform. You need to have a system of sufficient strength to carry out the process. This means high-performance CPUs. The exact requirements depend on your choice of voice cloning software and what you want to accomplish. You also need sufficient storage capacity because file sizes tend to be quite large. It is recommended that you have a solid state drive. Also, you need to have a significant amount of RAM, generally 16 GB or more. Be sure that you have high-quality microphones and recording equipment.
Why use AI voice cloning for digital media?
Cloned voices for translation purposes provide a wealth of benefits both to the people who create translations, and to the beneficiaries of them. Let us take a closer look at the benefits for all parties.
Better comprehension
One obvious benefit to cloning voices for media translation is improved comprehension on the part of listeners in other countries. When voices are cloned correctly, it provides a level of precision that people are used to getting from their own native media. People tend to lose attention when they listen to low-quality products. But when they feel like they are truly being spoken to in their own language, they are much more likely to pay attention and gain from the material. If you are in the business of making translations for global audiences, voice cloning will be a huge boon to your business. There is a huge emphasis on personalization in all industries these days, and there is no better way to personalize audio material than to create it in native-sounding voices for foreign audiences. Once people start to associate your name with the production of a particular type of media, your reputation will start to boom.
Increased global audiences
A further benefit is an increasing number of audiences that you will be able to reach. When you have success with one language group, you start to gain an understanding of the type of approach that is necessary to reach others. And then you can start to spread your media to more and more groups worldwide.
Potential obstacles
There are many potential benefits to the use of voice cloning for translation, for sure. However, there are also some major challenges and potential obstacles that you should be aware of if you are involved in voice cloning. Voice cloning has such immense potential that an obvious temptation is to clone voices of famous people, including celebrities and politicians. This can have extremely dangerous implications, though. If you don’t have the explicit consent of the people whose voices you want to clone, you should refrain from trying. Generative AI and related technologies can produce incredible results, it is true, but they require responsible use. Also, you don’t want to expose sensitive information when cloning voices. Everything that you do should be formalized and in compliance with formal rules.
Lack of regulations
This leads to another potential issue, which is lack of proper regulations. All of these technologies are still in their infancy, so governments and other regulators struggle with creating coordinated, clear regulations that can apply internationally. It will likely be some time before thorough international regulations are put in place, so it is largely the job of voice cloning professionals to retain ethical standards. There is also the potential for these programs to simply produce the wrong output. If a media producer uses voice cloning to create translations, he or she must absolutely check final material with a native speaker of the target language. As good as these programs are, like any technology they can be subject to glitches, inaccuracies, and bugs.
What you can do as a media producer
The issue with fraud and lack of regulations begs the question of whether or not there is even hope for global fairness in the industry. The short answer is that there is. Companies should create their own standards of ethics, and enforce policies to ensure fairness.
Test your final product
Because of the possibility for error, you as a producer of translated media should be rigorous about testing your final products. This means having native speakers on hand to review and fish out any inaccuracies that they might hear. You should go through this process several times in order to ensure that you have polished pieces at the end. If you do not, the inauthenticity of your productions will be obvious, and your beneficiaries will react accordingly. So to avoid reputational damage and prevent yourself from having to make even more changes later on, make a point of testing your results and smoothing them out to whatever degree you have to.
Multi-step authentication
There should be mandatory procedures that should be followed for people to be involved in voice cloning. First of all, like other secure systems it should require multi-step authentication to use. This creates an additional layer of protection and helps ensure that only the right people can access the system. They should also require that people whose voices are to be cloned provide written consent and biometric data that can be matched against final products. In other words, there should be an established protocol for opting in. There should also be an avenue for punishment of infractions. Intellectual property laws might not yet explicitly cover the issue of voice cloning, but people whose rights have been infringed upon should have legal recourse with regard to larger intellectual property issues.
Liveness detecting
A reassuring feature that is on the horizon is liveness detecting. This is exactly what it sounds like: the ability to detect whether a voice is a clone or not. Other biometric technologies are currently using this type of feature, so it is not inconceivable that it could apply to voice cloning, as well. Liveness detecting does not mean that the richness of translations will be lost. They will still retain their full character, but the difference will be that the detection mechanism will protect all of the parties involved.
Conclusion
Voice cloning is an amazing technology and one that can help people all over the world gain access to authentic-sounding material in their own languages. It has the ability to open up the realms of education, media, and other industries to people who might never have had access to these things before. It is also a potentially dangerous technology. The possibility for fraudulent use is clear, and many different kinds of problems can result if the wrong people get their hands on the technology. People’s reputations can be damaged, their personal information exposed, and numerous other things can go wrong for individuals and groups. Therefore, it is absolutely essential that the people who use voice cloning do so in a responsible way and enforce strict ethical practices when they create translated material. If they do, they will be helping to bring the world of media to untold numbers of people worldwide.
