Microsoft researchers have announced a new application that uses artificial intelligence to ape a person’s voice with just seconds of training. The model of the voice can then be used for text-to-speech applications.

The application called VALL-E can be used to synthesize high-quality personalized speech with only a three-second enrollment recording of a speaker as an acoustic prompt, the researchers wrote in a paper published online on arXiv, a free distribution service and an open-access archive for scholarly articles.

There are programs now that can cut and paste speech into an audio stream, and that speech is converted into a speaker’s voice from typed text. However, the program must be trained to emulate a person’s voice, which can take an hour or more.

“One of the standout things about this model is it does that in a matter of seconds. That’s very impressive,” Ross Rubin, the principal analyst at Reticle Research, a consumer technology advisory firm in New York City, told TechNewsWorld.

According to the researchers, VALL-E significantly outperforms existing state-of-the-art text-to-speech (TTS) systems in both speech naturalness and speaker similarity.

Moreover, VALL-E can preserve a speaker’s emotions and acoustic environment. So if a speech sample were recorded over a phone, for example, the text using that voice would sound like it was being read through a phone.

Continue reading… “Microsoft’s New AI Can Simulate Anyone’s Voice From a 3-Second Sample”

A team of scientists has developed a new tool to map out the planets

By Cheyenne R. Ubiera

A TEAM of scientists has developed a new open-source tool, powered by artificial intelligence, to map out the planets. 

Researchers from Constructor University in Bremen, Germany, the University of Padua, and the University of Bologna from Italy came together for the project.

The goal was to change the way planetary landforms are mapped out as the current system is a multi-step process that is extremely time-consuming, such as the case of mapping surfaces on Mars.

The team found that using deep-learning techniques using artificial neural networks to analyze data sets could improve the production process.

It also allowed for the creation of an open-source, ready-to-use, and highly customizable tool for planetary mapping.

“We were interested in designing a simple, out-of-the-box tool that can be customized and used by many,” said Giacomo Nodjoumi, who was involved in the project.

Continue reading… “Artificial intelligence to map all planets and could change our plans for Moon and Mars”

Microsoft ChatGPT does more than just act as a search and learn information dynamic ⁠— it claims to be able to create what you want, in seconds.

By Brian McGleenon

Microsoft (MSFT) is going all in on ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence (AI) technology that could power a new search engine that could disrupt the dominance of Google (GOOG).

News site Semafor reported on Tuesday that Microsoft is investing $10bn (£8.2bn) in OpenAI, the artificial intelligence firm that launched the AI generative tool ChatGPT in November 2022.

This will value the San Francisco-based firm at $29bn, and industry analysts say that Google should pay close attention to the deal.

Microsoft spends billions of dollars every year to try to compete with Google’s search engine dominance, but with comparatively low user interaction on Bing they have failed for over a decade.

Microsoft has so far failed to replicate the algorithm that powers Google search but if they incorporate the AI generating power of ChatGPT into Bing, or a new search engine, this could be “a game changer”, an industry commentator has suggested.

Web3 for enterprise expert Filippo Chisari told Yahoo Finance UK: “I believe Microsoft are most likely looking to build a search engine that will give them a competitive advantage over others.

Continue reading… “Microsoft’s ChatGPT investment could create ‘game-changer’ AI search engine”

The CEO of DoNotPay, Joshua Browder, introduced the A.I lawyer to the world on his Twitter. In his tweet, he shared a screen recording of the futuristic technology at work. 

Technology is taking over the world at a lightning-fast speed. If you are impressed by self-driving cars, brace yourself for an AI-powered robot lawyer. The impressive world’s first-ever robot lawyer will represent a client in an actual court. The CEO of DoNotPay, Joshua Browder, introduced the A.I lawyer to the world on his Twitter. In his tweet, he shared a screen recording of the futuristic technology at work. Browder mentioned that this clip showed DoNotPay’s ChatGPT bot talking to the Comcast Chat. This was the first ever Comcast bill negotiated. It is meant to save DoNotPay’s engineers $120 per year on Internet bills. This service will be publicly available soon. It will work on online forms, chat, and email. Browder also mentioned that the A.I is not perfect yet, saying that it is a bit too polite. But it will be improved before launch. Check it out here:

Watching the bot going at it in the clip was both entertaining and impressive for social media users. They were laughing over the A.I trying to get the final ‘thank you’ in, totally understanding what Joshua Browder meant when he tweeted it was “a bit too polite”. A social media user wrote, “For a second I thought there’d be this infinite loop when the agent said ‘You are very welcome’ and GPT said ‘Thank you again’.”

Continue reading… “World’s First Robot Lawyer to Defend Human in Speeding Ticket Case in US”