Alexa revives the dead online

• Rohit Prasad tried to illustrate the virtual assistant’s human-like behavior during a company presentation.
• The company’s chief scientist said he was taken aback by Alexa’s human-like qualities.
• Amazon does not state a release date for the new Alexa capability.

Rohit Prasad, the lead scientist behind Alexa, tried to illustrate the virtual assistant’s human-like behavior during a company presentation on Wednesday, according to an international news publication.

Prasad claimed that he was taken aback by the friendly bond people had with Alexa and that he wanted to look into this further.

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For building trust with people, he noted, human qualities like “empathy and affect” are crucial.

While AI cannot erase the grief of loss in the ongoing pandemic, he said, it can surely prolong the memory of those who have passed away.

The program is marketed by Amazon as a tool for reviving the dead digitally, according to the presentation.

Prasad explained that the service was not primarily meant to replicate the voice of deceased persons in a later interview conducted on the sidelines of Amazon’s re: MARS technology conference in Las Vegas.

“It’s not about those who aren’t here anymore,” he said.

“But it’s about your grandmother; if she’s not available, you can still give your kid a grandma voice. I would like to have that.”

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As the presentation circulated online, the creep factor took center stage in the conversation. However, more significant worries surfaced.

One was the potential for deepfakes to be made using the technology, which entailed utilizing a real recording to mimic individuals speaking things they hadn’t actually uttered.

Professor of computer science and engineering Siwei Lyu, whose research focuses on deepfakes and digital media forensics at the University of Buffalo, raised alarm over the development.

Although there are undoubtedly advantages to Amazon’s voice conversion capabilities, he cautioned against their possible abuse.

For instance, a predator could call and pretend to be a friend or family member to lure unwary victims, and a fake audio recording of a high-ranking CEO discussing company’s financial problems could cause the stock market to crash.

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Although Amazon does not state a release date for the new Alexa capability, future advancements in technology may make such mischief much simpler.

According to Prasad, Amazon had developed the ability to mimic a voice using less than a minute of that person’s speech. Before, doing so necessitated spending hours in a studio.