🧠 Voice Cloning: AI’s Ethical Dilemma

Subscribe | Contact | Meet The Team

Welcome back AI prodigies!

In today’s Sunday Special:

• 🍿In Entertainment

• ⛓In Campaign Fraud

• 🗳In Voter Empowerment

Read Time: 6 minutes

🎓Key Terms

• Headnotes: summaries of the issues in a legal case, which are separate from the opinion.

• Constitutional Republic: a state where the chief executive and representatives are elected, and the rules are set down in a written constitution.

• Plaintiff: a person or company that makes a legal complaint about someone else in a court of law.

🍿IN ENTERTAINMENT

AI-generated text, images, and videos receive the most attention in today’s AI media cycles. OpenAI’s ChatGPT, DALL-E 3, and Sora models dominate news headlines. However, AI-generated audio is more valuable and perhaps more problematic than the three most popular generative AI mediums. The best AI voice clones are more convincing than images and videos, and listening to a voice strikes a deeper chord than reading text.

Like any new technology, incredible applications exist in entertainment and beyond. Voice actors can create clones with different emotions, accents, and pitches and license them to film studios. Individuals with speech disabilities can communicate in their own voice with tools like Murf AI. Music producers can generate soundtracks to pair with artists, royalty-free music, and AI covers. Consumers can create functional music for increased focus or better sleep. Real-time language translation no longer requires smart glasses or a headset; smartphones do it for free (i.e., Instant Voice Translate for Android and iTranslate for iPhone).

Though AI-generated audio is promising, job automation and copyright infringement concerns linger following recent labor and legal outcomes. In Hollywood, many rejoiced after the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) reached a deal promising to solicit consent from and compensate performers using AI-generated content that leverages their voice or likeness. However, as actress and SAG Advisor Justine Bateman highlighted on X, several loopholes in the language of the new agreement allow studios to decide when to use digital doubles or synthetic performers based on an actor’s likeness.

In three prominent lawsuits, plaintiffs allege copyright infringement for using copyrighted content, including Getty Images, books, and headnotes, to train generative AI models. According to Perkins Coie LLP, all three rulings require further action by the plaintiff, leaving key issues unanswered.

⛓IN CAMPAIGN FRAUD

Like any AI application or any new technology, fraud is a nontrivial risk. Without question, using the likeness of prominent artists and actors for financial gain is illegal and immoral. Victims will receive monetary compensation, and perpetrators will face fines or imprisonment. But impersonating a politician’s voice is far more incendiary.

Entertainers exercise influence. Politicians also exercise power. Though the line separating the two is more blurry than ever, one truth, originating in Chinese history, remains unchanged. At the beginning of the Chinese Civil War (i.e., 1927–1949), which cemented the power of the Chinese Communist Party, Mao Zedong declared, “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” In a constitutional republic like ours, no law is enforceable without the enforcer exercising physical power over a civilian. Not only does misleading voters disrupt the political process and exacerbate the crisis of public trust, but it also touches every individual in society. Despite this bleak reality, AI-powered robocalls are likely becoming more common.

Recently, New Hampshire held a Democratic primary in which Representative Dean Phillips challenged President Biden. Steve Kramer, a consultant for the Phillips campaign, simulated President Biden’s voice, urging voters in New Hampshire’s Democratic primary to abstain from voting. With just $500, Kramer followed three simple steps to reach between 5,000 and 25,000 voters:

1. Paid a street magician $150 to recite a script for the call.

2. Created a Biden audio deepfake in under half an hour using an AI voice cloning tool.

3. Used the former New Hampshire Democratic Party chair’s phone number for credibility.

Kramer maintains he orchestrated the campaign to raise awareness about the risks of using AI in political campaigning, a claim the plaintiff’s attorneys will likely dispute. Although his defense was far from convincing, one of his arguments warrants a second glance.

🗳IN VOTER EMPOWERMENT

In an interview with CBS News, Kramer celebrated the return on investment of his robocall project, declaring, “For $500, I got about $5 million worth of action, whether that be media attention or regulatory.” While he sought to draw attention to the AI voice-related fraud, his laudatory statement highlighted the importance of money in political campaigning.

After watching an advertisement, most viewers won’t feel compelled to vote for a candidate. And like other advertisements, measuring their efficacy and, most importantly, their impact on voter turnout is difficult. As Brett Gordon, Professor of Marketing at Northwestern University, notes, research yields mixed answers. Despite this lack of clarity, political advertisement spending has doubled since 2018 and shows no signs of slowing down. In the 2020 presidential election, advertisements comprised 56% of campaign expenditures.

Some might argue that political campaigns are unfair and even undemocratic because wealthy individuals and large corporations overwhelmingly raise these funds. For instance, a New York Times report found that just 400 families raised over half the money spent in the 2016 presidential election. Others might counter that campaign spending rarely produces electoral victory, as the candidate who spent more lost 15 out of the last 17 elections. If critics of big-money campaigning are correct, generative AI can help democratize political advertising, so long as users deploy it legally and ethically. Any voter, on behalf of any campaign, can make compelling content and distribute it for free.

📒FINAL NOTE

If you found this useful, follow us on Twitter or provide honest feedback below. It helps us improve our content.

How was today’s newsletter?

• ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️Nailed it!

• ⭐️⭐️⭐️Average

• ⭐️Epic fail.

❤️AI Pulse Review of The Week

🎁NOTION TEMPLATES

🚨Subscribe to our newsletter for free and receive these powerful Notion templates:

• ⚙️150 ChatGPT prompts for Copywriting

• ⚙️325 ChatGPT prompts for Email Marketing

• 📆Simple Project Management Board

• ⏱Time Tracker