The emergence in the last week of a particularly effective voice synthesis machine learning model called VALL-E has prompted a new wave of concern over the possibility of deepfake voices made quick and easy -- quickfakes, if you will. But VALL-E is more iterative than breakthrough, and the capabilities aren't so new as you might think. Whether that means you should be more or less worried is up to you. Voice replication has been a subject of intense research for years, and the results have been good enough to power plenty of startups, like WellSaid, Papercup and Respeecher. The latter is even being used to create authorized voice reproductions of actors like James Earl Jones. Yes: from now on Darth Vader will be AI generated.

An image of babies doing parkour generated by DALL-E mini. An image of babies doing parkour generated by DALL-E mini. DALL-E mini is the AI bringing to life all of the goofy "what if" questions you never asked: What if Voldemort was a member of Green Day? What if there was a McDonald's in Mordor? What if scientists sent a Roomba to the bottom of the Mariana Trench?