at the back of a suburban coffee shop in
Montreal you'll find four young computer
scientists and their new startup
Lyrebird these guys are doing something
amazing and frightening they're using AI
to clone your voice are you speaking
about this new algorithm to copy voices
this is huge they can make us say
anything now really anything one of the
guys behind this scary innovation is
Mexican expat Jose he taught me the art
of the clone so you will need to record
yourself for a few minutes of audio
thousands of letters danced across the
amateur authors screen when you start to
eat like this something is the matter
you guys better quit politics and take
in washing I don't know where that work
ever
okay so create my digital voice now
your digital voice takes at least one
minute one minute my god yeah so before
to create some artificial voice of
someone you would need to record
yourself forearm at least eight hours
test your voice all right so now I get
the types of day yeah so the moment of
the truth
what's lyrebirds AI has worked it's
magic
after I'm done typing misspelled letter
any words I put into the app can be
played back in my digital voice and
here's the crazy thing even words I
never actually said in the first place
artificial intelligence technology seems
to be advancing very quickly should we
be afraid I mean I can definitely hear
by voice in there last that is that's
really interesting I just picked those
words at random and I definitely did not
say some of them and it's like flawless
and being able to sort of pick from just
about any word and manufacture it I've
ever seen this technology seems sweet
[Music]
but lends itself to all manner of
trickery
[Applause]
I've popped back to my hotel to test out
the library technology a little bit and
you could see some really obvious ways
that this could be abused this is fake
Donald Trump talking the United States
is considering in addition to other
options stopping all trade with any
country doing business with North Korea
and then you did picture somebody taking
over your voice and creating some mayhem
in your personal life now to really put
my computer voice to the test I am going
to call my dear sweet mother and see if
she recognizes me hey mom hi what are
you guys up to today I'm just finishing
up work and waiting for the boys to get
home okay I think I'm coming down with a
virus I was messing around with you you
were talking to a computer amazing is
that scary you're good it could be scary
if it was something really important but
you know is the - I don't know is it
[Music]
after realizing that anyone with the
time and inclination could mess with my
life there was only one thing left to do
I joined Jose and a few other lyrebirds
to chat more about the evils of AI while
dulling my fear with booze obviously
some people are freaked out by this
technology because we're already like
blurring the line about truth in reality
of course there is some risk in in in
people using this kind of technology for
bad applications
unfortunately technologies it's not
possible to stop it so the ethical path
that we have decided is to show these to
people to make them know that this kind
of technology is available and so to
make them more cautious on this kind of
subject we really believe that right now
when the technology is not perfect is
the right time to let people kind of
play with it get used to it slowly so
you guys think the idea is just sort of
new and that's what scares people but if
you get used to it it's just that's just
the way it is we want our technology to
be used for for positive things it's not
something that we should be really
afraid of it's something that we should
be careful about but I feel enthusiastic
about
[Music]
it's nice to be enthusiastic it's also
nice to meditate on the consequences of
your inventions instead of turning our
souls over to chance and blind luck but
it is kind of cool to be a cynical
bastard in my new artisanal computer
voice welcome Russian friends to our
huge wonderful and very pure elections
[Music]
thanks for watching and if you want to
see more hello world click on the link
to subscribe