Last month, Ashlee Vance of Bloomberg interviewed the founders of Lyrebird , an artificial intelligence company based in Montreal, Canada. Lyrebird can “create the most realistic artificial voices in the world,” according to the website.
The company’s software recorded Vance’s voice and cloned it in a matter of minutes. The AI version was so realistic that Vance’s mother did not realize she was talking to a computer instead of her son when he called her on the phone.
Lyrebird’s technology has already been used to help people, including Pat Quinn , the founder of the Ice Bucket Challenge. Quinn suffers from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a degenerative neuromuscular disease that left him voiceless. Lyrebird used video from the talks Quinn had given to replace the robotic voice technology he had previously used to communicate.
The cloning of voices also increases the possibility of misuse of technology. Vance used Lyrebird to create the voice of Donald Trump.
“We want our technology to be used for positive things,” said Mexican Jose Sotelo, the co-founder of Lyrebird. “It’s not something we should fear, it’s something we have to be careful about and thrilled about.”
