This AI can spoof your voice after just three seconds

Artificial intelligence (AI) is having a moment right now, and the wind continues to blow in its sails with the news that Microsoft is working on an AI that can imitate anyone's voice after being fed a short three-second sample. The new tool, dubbed VALL-E, has been trained on roughly 60,000 hours of voice data in the English language, which Microsoft says is "hundreds of times larger than existing systems". Using that knowledge, its creators claim it only needs a small smattering of vocal input to understand how to replicate a user's voice. More impressive, VALL-E can reproduce the emotions, vocal tones, and acoustic environment found in each sample, something other voice AI programs have struggled with. That gives it a more realistic aura and brings its results closer to something that could pass as genuine human speech.