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TALK TO ME GOOSE! In weird tech news, Amazon has just announced that it can bring back the voices of any of your dead friends or relatives with a simple one-minute recording. Top Gun’s Maverick would be able to play a one-minute audio from his flying companion and then for the rest of his life be able to chat to Goose as his Alexa ‘companion’. Or missing your Grandma? She could be the new voice of choice on your Alexa device. The company revealed the new advances in its AI application at its MARS (machine learning, automation, robotics, and space) conference in June. And from this it’s clear that Amazon no longer sees Alexa as just a personal assistant, but also “an advisor and companion.” It’s that latter role that inspired Alexa to reproduce any voice from just a oneminute recording. The main use? To allow the creation of “lasting personal relationships” with deceased loved ones according to the tech giant. Rohit Prasad, SVP and head scientist at Alexa AI, made the reveal showing a video
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demonstration in which a young boy asks his panda model Echo Dot for Kids, “Alex, can Grandma finish reading me the ‘Wizard of Oz’?” “OK,” Alexa replies, before changing her voice and reading while the boy turns the pages of his book. In case you are not a user, Alexa currently has two main voices, plus a few celebrity voices including Samuel L. Jackson and Melissa McCarthy. “Having Alexa speak like Samuel L. Jackson is pretty cool, but this new development feels a little concerning for me,” reveals Joseph Foley from Creative Bloq. “While it’s admirable that Amazon wants to combat loneliness and help people deal with loss (it says it was particularly inspired by the Covid-19 pandemic) I can’t help but be a little creeped out.”
Others were quick to point out the weirdness of Amazon’s latest announcement. Respected news site ZDNet said on hearing the announcement, “Did the hairs on the back of your neck just raise up? Cause that’s not creep at all!”
