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During the annual conference re: MARS, aimed at disseminating news and future features of its products and services, the Amazon unveiled a new technology for the Alexa which allows the personal assistant to reproduce speeches of deceased relatives while listening to a one-minute audio.
The new feature was seen as exciting and quite curious by many people on the internet, but the fact is that yes, it exists, and it should reach the Echo Dot that you have at home in the not-so-distant future. See the details right now.
This is very Black Mirror
The novelty (which was seen by some people as a little scary) uses a technology called “generalizable intelligence”, which, in practice, allows the personal assistant that is present on all devices in the Amazon Echo line to adapt to different situations and learn new features in a short time.
To exemplify this new Alexa feature, rohit prasad, chief scientist at Amazon to Alexa, revealed the example of a boy who asked his personal assistant to finish reading “The Wizard of Oz”. Shortly after confirmation, the assistant switched to the voice of the child's grandmother, who had passed away. Watch:
as a good fan of Black Mirror, which was recently renewed for its sixth season, there is no denying the reference to the episode “Volto Já” from the show. In this anthology, a woman who lost her husband invests in AI technology that not only sends emails, mimics the voice, and even physically looks like the person she loved, but also manages to have the same personality traits. In the series, the creation of this “character” was done through an analysis of behavior on social networks.
Rohit ended the presentation of the appeal by citing that the novelty is “practically crucial” in this post-COVID-19 period, which has currently claimed more than 6,32 million victims.
This required inventions where we had to learn how to produce a high quality voice in less than a minute of recording versus hours of recording in the studio. The way we did this was by framing the problem as a speech conversion task and not a speech generation path. While AI can't take away the pain of loss, it can definitely make your memories last.
Rohit Prasad, Amazon's Chief Scientist for Alexa
When will Alexa's "new voice" become available?
There's no word yet on when the new feature will roll out to everyone who owns a device. Echo or compatible with Alexa, but the possibilities will be endless. In addition to being able to hear the voices of deceased relatives, it will be possible to do this with anyone users want to imitate.
Imagine that if you really like the Elvis Presley, Alexa, through a video lasting at least one minute, you will be able to make the eternal king of rock read books released after his death or even talk to you. As strange as that sounds in theory.
The internet is somewhat divided on the release of the novelty. While netizens stressed that it will be possible to remember deceased relatives, there are also people who were concerned about how thieves can use the voice of the Alexa to simulate a kidnapping, ask for money or even request passwords from banks and social networks.
In any case, we can't wait for the next chapters of this story. It is worth remembering that day after day, artificial intelligence systems are gaining more and more resources and one of the most prominent is the TheMDA, from Google. In addition to comparing itself to human beings, the AI has hired its own lawyer to defend itself in the event of a possible attack from its developer, according to Blake Lemon.
What did you think of the new feature? Do you believe that a layer of security will be added before the launch happens? tell us Comment!
See also other features
Check out our special article on Amazon Assistant products and decide if it's time to buy yours.
Sources: The Verge l Business Insider
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