In mid-2019, I shared 9 Ways That Artificial Intelligence Might Disrupt Authors and Publishing, and one of those possible disruptions concerned voice technologies, which I also wrote about in Audio for Authors.
In 2020, we have seen an acceleration of AI with the release of GPT-3 for natural language processing and generation, as well as the development of ever more sophisticated voice recognition and creation. In this episode, Mark Leslie Lefebvre and I share a conversation between our Voice Doubles and our thoughts on the ramifications.
* Our Voice Double conversation
* Thoughts from some of my Patrons
* How we created the Voice Doubles using Descript with just 30 mins of training (reading a story)
* What we had to change and edit to get around a few of the pronunciation issues e.g. I could not get it to say ‘creatives' correctly so changed the word to ‘authors.' I also couldn't get it to say ‘mass-market' in my voice, so I changed that text as well.
* Our thoughts on the development of the tech and why we think it's important for authors and creatives to engage with the technology rather than avoid it
* A warning of deep fakes and why Kevin Kelly's 1000 True Fans is more important than ever
You can get your own Voice Double at Descript.com. You can find Mark at MarkLeslie.ca. Mark also recorded a special episode with more of his thoughts in episode 148 of Stark Reflections.
We'd love to know what you think so please leave a comment or tweet me @thecreativepenn and Mark @markleslie
Our Voice Double Original (Edited) Script
Jo: Hi, Mark.
Mark: Hey, Jo. How are you doing?
Jo: I’m good. So, how's lockdown where you are? How are things in Canada?
Mark: Lockdown has actually allowed me to discover new types of creativity in myself, where I seem to have prevented myself from writing prose. But I rediscovered the joy of doing parody videos and experimenting with different forms of creativity. So I have the energy inside me to tell story, to want to share and amuse and entertain, and I redirected it into a different output that satisfied that part of my soul that needs to write, and now I'm back writing again. But while I was struggling, it was really good to have that outlet.
Jo: I also struggled at the beginning, and I did a flurry of business activities. I made a couple of online courses, including one on turning what you know into an online course, which was, you know, useful and also…
Mark: Very meta?
Jo: Yes, very meta. And also made some money. So, that was really good because the first instinct is the survival instinct, which is, ‘I just need to make some more money in order to survive this, whatever this is.' And then there's that period of, ‘Okay. This isn't just over quickly, and the zombie apocalypse has not arrived, and now I need to finish that novel.' I did manage to change up my creative routine and to finish Map of the Impossible. But we are talking about artificial intelligence today because we are both enthusiasts but there are clearly positives...
