{"id":2192,"date":"2016-09-15T15:05:46","date_gmt":"2016-09-15T15:05:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/?p=2192"},"modified":"2016-09-15T15:05:46","modified_gmt":"2016-09-15T15:05:46","slug":"another-wall-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/2016\/09\/another-wall-down\/","title":{"rendered":"Another wall down"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>So Google just presented <a href=\"https:\/\/deepmind.com\/blog\/wavenet-generative-model-raw-audio\/\" target=\"_blank\">Wavenet<\/a>, an AI that recreates human speech more accurately than anything before. As a sound designer I am used to <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Speech_synthesis\" target=\"_blank\">speech synthesis<\/a> and have been playing with it for the past sixteen years. the last big innovation was around 2000. This is something else.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Cyborg and Speech Synthesis\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/29955618@N06\/14734982192\/in\/photolist-os5CR7-4ypoJj-egYGip-eJzmbp-dKSYfK-kgF2XH-nqVNuR-8torvZ-62HueL-7X1z2y-8trsH3-6ZsN3n-5vtQbr-dKYsvd-dKSY7r-vpSxJ-cKPvBG-mLfysg-mi7BK-osRPu5-7A5HQ9-dwS8Go-6MuzNJ-iSUZFq-kXoFC-mRacEr-r2naK-6htNka-oM7gNp-otXfxS-qrq817-6Jyr-ropBmt-7Fw8VX-8NNRR-8nh6Xv-edCNKq-95zeiJ-L7zJk-dwS913-8gE134-9JBwcC-8gHgzY-2gKet-dKSXSn-8gHf8J-8gHfEo-8gE1eg-ovsfhN-aaFhgf\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Cyborg and Speech Synthesis\" src=\"https:\/\/c1.staticflickr.com\/6\/5561\/14734982192_77eb85991a_c.jpg\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" \/><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>This is so close to a real voice I feel in deny. Convincingly faking a human voice to the ear the most unforgivable, most sensitive organ we have \u2013and which is totally shaped around human voice- is a tremendous achievement. Like, I can\u2019t believe it it\u2019s pretty much a done deal.<\/p>\n<p>Look at yourself and see how you react to the voice or sounds of your loved ones. Yeah, a computer will be able to make you cry really soon. Forget virtual worlds and visual cues, audio triggers emotions like nothing else.<\/p>\n<p>Same week, Microsoft just announced that <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.microsoft.com\/next\/2016\/09\/13\/microsoft-researchers-achieve-speech-recognition-milestone\/#sm.0000139a830ey4ev9sv1t0fpxar1v\" target=\"_blank\">they have reached a milestone in speech recognition<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Both sides of the equation are being solved as we speak.<\/p>\n<p>Obviously first thing I think about: jobs. It\u2019s ridiculous how many jobs are based on boring ass discussions, bam, gone. The fact that now robots will be able to understand us easily AND answer with natural voices is FREAKING ME OUT. Jobs where you needed a human to interface between people and machines, ba-bam, gone. Voice is why you trust your doctor. You\u2019ll trust a robot with a sulky voice even more.<\/p>\n<p>As Brad Wardell <a href=\"http:\/\/littletinyfrogs.com\/article\/479588\/Economic_Singularity_The_Gods_and_the_Useless\" target=\"_blank\">is writing<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p><em>The new uber class (calling them rich isn\u2019t even the right term at that stage) will be way ahead of the mob. They\u2019ll have machines to protect their holdings, homes and families from the rabble. So those who think \u201cthey\u2019ll have to do something for everyone else or they\u2019ll be a revolution\u201d think again. Don\u2019t assume a universal basic income is a definite.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Of course no techlord be MS or Google or Uber or Facebook or Amazon are warning us, they\u2019re too busy replacing us already.<\/p>\n<p>If you have kids or plan to have some, you\u2019d better get the discussion about UBI going right the fuck now.<\/p>\n<p>I can\u2019t shake the feeling that we\u2019re arriving where we wanted to be but that it\u2019s also an abrupt end to things as we know them\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So Google just presented Wavenet, an AI that recreates human speech more accurately than anything before. As a sound designer I am used to speech synthesis and have been playing with it for the past sixteen years. the last big innovation was around 2000. This is something else. This is so close to a real [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2192"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2192"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2193,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2192\/revisions\/2193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}