For all of the enthusiasm around artificial intelligence right now, the majority of the practical applications addressed in the public are around Chat GPT. Chat GPT is a powerful tool, to be sure, but it does not represent the whole extent of AI’s capabilities at this time. Over the coming several weeks, I’ll post some articles on other practical AI applications you may use in your business today that aren’t solely focused on text generation.
Text-to-speech technology is here to stay.
With the next 2024 election, deepfakes will dominate the media debate. Text-to-voice deepfakes are incredibly difficult to detect, with humans only detecting fake voices under ¾ of the time.
While deepfakes provide a bleak picture of the future, text-to-speech technology has practical uses that benefit humans and can be employed in business now.
Some of the firms working on text-to-speech technologies include:
Eleven Labs
Speechify
Murf.ai
How does text-to-speech technology work?
Text-to-speech (TTS) technology cleverly turns written text into spoken words, rendering digital material audible. It begins by breaking down the text into smaller components, such as phrases and words, and then into the actual sounds of speech. The technology focuses on recognizing syntax and the content of the text you feed it (such that the voice sounds fluent in the language intended). This entails analyzing not just the words themselves but also how they should be expressed with the appropriate emphasis and tone. A crucial element of this process is machine learning, in which the system learns from vast volumes of spoken language data, constantly increasing its capacity to mimic human speech.