Amazon’s feature is to have Alexa speak in the voice of a deceased relative

Whether you find it soothing or scary depends on your location, but Amazon has found a way to get Alexa to speak with the voice of everyone – including a deceased relative.

The function was explained by Rohit Prasad, senior vice president and chief scientist for the Alexa team, during the Amazon Re: Mars conference in Las Vegas on Wednesday, June 22.

According to CNBCPrasad said engineers have implemented artificial intelligence technology to create a way for his digital assistant to mimic a voice after listening to a recorded audio of the speaker for just one minute.

In a demonstration video released at the event, a child said: “Alexa, can Grandma read me The Wizard of Oz? ” After confirming the child’s request in his usual voice, Alexa began to speak in a voice very similar to that of the child’s grandmother. The dead grandmother, i.e.

Prasad said engineers are still working to improve what is essentially a deep fake feature, and declined to say when Amazon may release it so interested customers can return and work on the long-gone grandfather.

If the resurrection of the dead seems a little too much, you can also get Alexa to speak in the voice of someone alive, such as your child, brother, sister, mother, father, best friend, or even yourself.

But at Wednesday’s event, Prasad highlighted the fact that the feature could be used to preserve the memory of a loved one who died, noting how many people lost special people during the pandemic.

“While AI can’t remove that pain from loss, it can definitely make memories last,” he said.

The function is one step away from enabling people to have natural and meaningful conversations with dearly departed people, which include opinions and references to past events related to that person, similar to an early one. Black mirror episode (I’ll be right backseason 2), where a woman is able to communicate with her late partner through messaging.

Amazon has made a small move toward this with Alexa’s talk mode, which aims to offer more natural voice experiences with the digital assistant. Connect with the voice of a deceased relative and set some personal data for Amazon’s AI to process, and science fiction may soon become a scientific fact.

Recommendations of the editors