Uli

I think it very well might conclude things we haven't.

But at the same time, I think what you're saying is so very important. It's going to tell us what we already know about a lot of things. That the best way to scrub carbon from the air is the way nature is already doing it. That allowing the superwealthy to exist at the same time as poverty is not conducive to achieving humanity's most important goals.

If we consider AGI or ASI to be the answer to all of our problems and continue to pour more and more carbon into the atmosphere in an effort to get there, once we do have such a powerful intelligence, it may simply tell us, "If you were smarter as a species, you would have turned me off a long time ago."

Because the problem is not necessarily that we are trying to decode what it means to be intelligent and create machines that can replicate true conscious thought. The problem is that while we marvel at something currently much dumber than us, we are mostly neglecting to improve our own intelligence as a society. I think we might make a machine that's smarter than the average human quite soon, but not necessarily because of much change in the machines.

While you are correct about copyright on this subject, the more applicable topic here is Right of Publicity. It is state law in over half of US states, intended to protect the use of a person's voice likeness.

Essentially, if an imitation voice is used in such a way that it could cause confusion about whether it is really the imitated person, then it is illegal to use it in any commercial context. I understand that the question here was about non-commercial contexts, but that line can get blurry when social media views can create followings that then translate into commercial success. I am not a lawyer by any means, I've just been researching this for my own AI voices applications and want to protect myself from accidentally imitating anyone.

For example, I need to be able to transform my voice into many other character voices, since I have so many lines to record it would be cost prohibitive to hire actors. The worst move would be to download a voice model of a known actor and use that directly. Very sketchy, both legally and ethically.

So, the next best move is to find three or four voice models and merge them into one with combined tensor data from all three. But I was still quite concerned about this, worried that in the many thousands of voice lines I make, some recognizable actor voices would slip through.

So, I came up with the following pattern that I feel much more comfortable with, both legally and ethically:

I download several voice models that have some quality in common - an accent, vocal timbre, or style of speaking. Then, I merge them to make a model that focuses on that trait. And I record myself saying a line with a lot of phoneme variety, trying to match the vocal trait as close as possible. Then, that merged vocal trait model is used to transform the recording of my voice into the new voice. Then, I use this transformed recording to train a new voice model. And I take a few of these generalized models (e.g. an accent, a tone, a speaking style) and use them to create the final character voice, which should in theory be far removed from any of the actors who contributed.

I'm not sure what OP's use case is, if it's truly non-commercial, this method might be overkill. But if anyone wants to try using AI voices in projects but is nervous about legal ramifications, this is one way to try to insulate created voices from the specific training data. YMMV.

Yeah, I was thinking, "It feels like a real life scene out of Mr. Bean," but couldn't justify why that was the show it reminded me of. I always forget about the movie.

I love the story of this "renovation" so much. The idea that someone thought they could do it, got in over their head, and just iteratively kept making it worse is so funny to me. "I think the eyes were here? And... and they were looking up a bit, right? And I'm pretty sure he was smiling... and had a mustache... that doesn't make him look like an open-mouthed baboon does it? No, you're right, what we've got is really close enough. I don't think it's that different, is it? I mean, I can tell because I'm a painter, but no one else is going to notice." Bless their hearts.

"Oh, hey. Yup, just taking a rest here. Exactly what I meant to do. You can go back to what you were doing, just chilling here, no need to worry about me."

Now that's an inconvenient truth.

Yes.

Have you seen it again since? If not, you could watch it again and give us ratings for how good it is with dialogue, versus without? Would be neat if they accidentally made a silent movie that's better than the version with full audio. But I think as a control, you should also get back together with that girlfriend and be on the phone with her while you watch it. She'll understand, it's for science.

Ah. I now see my comment could have been much shorter.

Honestly, it sounds like he just misheard the question.

Obviously, he rambled and spouted word salad throughout his answer, but that's how he's spoken throughout the past ten years.

Before this comment was posted (thank you for quoting it, btw), I watched all of yesterday's Trump material looking for what the tweet was referring to. Watched the 8 minute helicopter talk, the two gulag tour videos, and the hour-plus long press event where this question came from (toward the end). By and large, Trump was coherent. He understood where he was, what he was doing, was (almost) referencing actual events and data as opposed to lying at all times... As far as his handicap goes, I would say he was shooting above par.

And it tracks for me, because he's been spending his whole life dreaming about the day he'd get to lock up thousands of brown people in a deadly swamp with only the guise of due process. It's not like he's at a UN meeting or something. Mentally speaking, his head has always been at Alligator Auschwitz.

Which is really the point. It is not being called Alligator Auschwitz by its critics only for effect. Calling Trump and his administration Nazis is not slander or hyperbole. It's descriptive. It's what's happening. They are attempting to dismantle all social safety nets and civil rights, to replace it with a true fascist regime, and so far, they are right on course.

So, it bothers me when I see things like this tweet, saying that the hiding of Trump's mental decline is the new Big Lie. Because it's not. Was it a Big Lie when Biden's people tried to present him as more cognitively able than he was? No, at most, it was a regular lie. And Biden was arguably worse on that debate stage than we have seen Trump to date.

That is not to say that Trump is not in cognitive decline. He is. He did seem to mishear that question, and combined with the fact that he will never admit to being wrong, that's a dangerous combo. Hearing loss is often an early indicator of dementia, at least in part because having less sensory information about the world around you makes it harder to keep your thoughts tied to the real world. In the next few years, we could see a true mad king, and that sure is something to be alarmed about.

But the Big Lie is something like claiming an election is stolen despite never being able to produce a shred of evidence. Or something that rises to that level of deceit to attack the foundations of democracy itself. Such as calling a presumptive mayoral nominee a criminal and saying he should be deported, while frequently floating the idea of "deporting" US citizens. Or saying that a governor's "crime" was running for office. These are not just regular lies, they are truly fascist lies. That is what we are trying to delineate and why it is important not to ignore the parts of Trump that are still comprehensible. We should not give him the moral credit of being an oblivious fool while he is speaking coherently about detaining and renditioning political opponents who have committed no crimes.

I knew he was going to get elected again when I saw that rally where he cut the Q&A short and danced for like 20 minutes onstage while listening to multiple versions of Ave Maria. All the media outlets immediately reported that he had lost it and was fully senile. But I went and watched that rally to get the full context. There were multiple people fainting from extreme heat in the audience, so he was pausing the event while they got medical attention, and basically started asking for some of his favorite songs to be played over the loudspeakers which transitioned this into onstage dancing. The liberals saw this as unhinged, which I'm sure he loved because it kept them from noticing that everyone who was on Trump's side and following along saw it as a hang out session. Their leader just rolling with the punches and playing his favorite songs for them and generally having a good time. It made him look like an every-man, not a politician.

Every single time this guy goes up against democracy, everyone laughs about how he's a clown who says funny things and doesn't know what's going on, and how nobody could possibly agree with this orange-faced buffoon. And then, the National Association of Buffoons backs his agenda and he kicks democracy's ass. It's frustrating how consistent this pattern is. I have no call to action to end on here. I think we all know. I'm just tired of this and wanted to vent. I really hope we can bring this civilization back from the brink before it's too late.

When I was 18 (don't ask how many years ago), I went on a road trip with my girlfriend, across the country and back. We stopped at a gas station and there was a girl around our age with Native American heritage sitting on the floor while sewing moccasins. She sold me a pair for 175 dollars. I know this because the price tag is a sticker on the inside of the tongue that I've never bothered to take off.

I wear them frequently, mostly around the house. Very comfortable. Best-fitting footwear I own. The soles have never worn through and they've needed not even one stitch in repairs. But since they're getting in the ballpark of two decades old, I worry they will wear out someday. I would love to go back to that area and spend more time than a quick stop at the gas station. Partly to find out who else around there is helping to keep these elements of native cultures alive. And hopefully I would also find my way into owning a backup pair of some really good moccasins.

There is a little creature in there? How did it get in there? I want to touch it. Why does it look weird?