logo
episode-header-image
Oct 2021
28m 38s

Look who's talking - the rise of ‘voice ...

Bbc Radio 4
About this episode

When you listen to a radio programme, watch an animated film, or even receive a phone call, it’s unlikely you’ll question whether the words you’re hearing are coming from the mouth of a human being. But all that could be about to change thanks to the rise of ‘voice cloning’.

Elaine Moore is a tech columnist at the Financial Times and she’s interested in the ramifications of this new technology. Thanks to artificial intelligence, cloning a human voice can be achieved with just a few minutes of recorded audio. As the technology becomes more sophisticated and its use more widespread, how will this affect our society, our politics and our personal interactions? And is it time we were able to control what happens to our own voice both now and when we die?

With contributions from: Carlton Daniel, lawyer at Squire Patton Boggs. Tom Lee, co-founder of LOVO. David Leslie, Ethics Theme Lead at the Alan Turing Institute. Rupal Patel, founder & CEO of VocaliD. Tim McSmythurs, AI Researcher and creator of Speaking AI. James Vlahos, co-founder of HereAfter AI.

Producer: Craig Templeton Smith Editor: Jasper Corbett

Up next
Mar 2024
The low pay puzzle
From April, 2.7 million workers will get one of the biggest pay rises in UK history as the National Living Wage rises to £11.44 an hour. But will they feel better off?It's 25 years since the National Minimum Wage was introduced. During that time it's credited with putting billion ... Show More
29m 1s
Mar 2024
The low pay puzzle
From April, 2.7 million workers will get one of the biggest pay rises in UK history as the National Living Wage rises to £11.44 an hour. But will they feel better off?It's 25 years since the National Minimum Wage was introduced. During that time it's credited with putting billion ... Show More
29m 1s
Mar 2024
How real is the existential threat from AI?
The existential threat caused by Artificial Intelligence is a popular theme in science fiction. But more recently it’s started to be taken seriously by governments around the world and the companies developing the technology. Where did this idea come from, and why is so much mone ... Show More
29m 6s
Recommended Episodes
Apr 2023
Can we control Artificial Intelligence?
Last month a company in San Francisco called OpenAi released an artificial intelligence system called GPT-4 - a successor to its hugely popular AI chatbot ChatGPT. The latest version can respond to images, write captions and descriptions - processing up to 25,000 words at a time. ... Show More
49m 15s
Nov 2023
Superintelligent AI: The Utopians
If even AI companies are fretting about the existential threat that human-level AI poses, why are they building these machines in the first place? And as they press ahead, a debate is raging about how we regulate this emergent sector to keep it under control. In the second episod ... Show More
24m 48s
Dec 2023
Superintelligent AI: can chatbots think?
Are generative AI systems such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT really intelligent? Large language models such as GPT 4 appear to use human-level cognitive abilities when they engage in legal reasoning, write essays or solve complex problems. Hosts John Thornhill and Madhumita Murgia speak to ... Show More
29m 27s
Sep 2023
Coming soon: Can AI help us speak to animals?
Subscribe now to the FT's Tech Tonic podcast: Some scientists believe that rapid advances in artificial intelligence may also hold the key to decoding animal sounds, allowing us to ‘translate’ them into human language. In a new season of Tech Tonic, FT innovation editor John Thor ... Show More
1m 9s
Apr 2021
In Machines We Trust: AI finds its voice
Synthetic voice technologies are increasingly passing as human. But today’s voice assistants are still a far cry from the hyper-intelligent thinking machines we’ve been musing about for decades. In this episode, we explore how machines learn to communicate—and what it means for t ... Show More
27m 52s
Sep 2023
Can AI help us speak to animals? Part one
A hardware revolution in recording devices and a software revolution in artificial intelligence is enabling researchers to listen in to all kinds of conversations outside the human hearing range, a field known as bioacoustics. Some scientists now believe these developments will a ... Show More
29m 12s
Oct 2022
In Machines We Trust: AI finds its voice
Synthetic voice technologies are increasingly passing as human. But today’s voice assistants are still a far cry from the hyper-intelligent thinking machines we’ve been musing about for decades. In this episode, we explore how machines learn to communicate—and what it means for t ... Show More
27m 20s
Sep 2023
Can AI help us speak to animals? Part one
A hardware revolution in recording devices and a software revolution in artificial intelligence is enabling researchers to listen in to all kinds of conversations outside the human hearing range, a field known as bioacoustics. Some scientists now believe these developments will a ... Show More
29m 12s
Sep 2023
Coming soon: Can AI help us speak to animals?
Subscribe now to the FT's Tech Tonic podcast: Some scientists believe that rapid advances in artificial intelligence may also hold the key to decoding animal sounds, allowing us to ‘translate’ them into human language. In a new season of Tech Tonic, FT innovation editor John Thor ... Show More
1m 9s
Nov 2023
Superintelligent AI: The Doomers
In the first episode of a new, five-part series of Tech Tonic, FT journalists Madhumita Murgia and John Thornhill ask how close we are to building human-level artificial intelligence and whether ‘superintelligent’ AI poses an existential risk to humanity. John and Madhu speak to ... Show More
28m 47s