Communications of the ACM
Alexa Has a New Voice — Your Dead Relative's
Amazon’s Alexa could soon read children‘s stories in late relatives‘ voices.
Credit: Jonathan Baran/The Washington Post
Propped atop a bedside table during this week's Amazon tech summit, an Echo Dot was asked to complete a task: "Alexa, can Grandma finish reading me 'The Wizard of Oz'?"
Alexa's typically cheery voice boomed from the kids-themed smart speaker with a panda design: "Okay!" Then, as the device began narrating a scene of the Cowardly Lion begging for courage, Alexa's robotic twang was replaced by a more human-sounding narrator.
"Instead of Alexa's voice reading the book, it's the kid's grandma's voice," Rohit Prasad, senior vice president and head scientist of Alexa artificial intelligence, excitedly explained Wednesday during a keynote speech in Las Vegas. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
The demo was the first glimpse into Alexa's newest feature, which — though still in development — would allow the voice assistant to replicate people's voices from short audio clips. The goal, Prasad said, is to build greater trust with users by infusing artificial intelligence with the "human attributes of empathy and affect."
From The Washington Post
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