OpenAI recently made headlines with the announcement of Voice Engine, a technology capable of cloning the human voice from an audio sample of only 15 seconds. This tool, which represents a significant breakthrough in the field of speech synthesis, has sparked much debate regarding its potential applications and ethical implications.
Voice Engine was developed with the intention of offering a range of innovative services, including the ability to generate speech content for education, visual storytelling, health care support, and communication. For example, the technology has been used by Age of Learning to create pre-recorded voice content and by Spotify to dub well-known podcasts in various languages, demonstrating the versatility and potential of this innovation.
Despite the many positive applications, OpenAI has taken a cautious approach regarding the distribution of Voice Engine, limiting access to the technology to a small number of developers and partners. This decision reflects the company’s awareness of potential abuse risks, such as deepfake creation or impersonation without consent. To mitigate these risks, OpenAI has implemented security measures such as watermarking audio clips to track the origin and proactive monitoring of technology usage.