Having machines turn text into speech is nothing new. Professor Stephen Hawking communicated with a computerized voice for many years, and by now, we're used to our GPS devices or smart speakers asking questions and responding to our queries. What is different these days is that the quality of synthesized speech is improving, thanks to several companies using AI to create voice skins for enterprise companies and content creators that give more options for turning text into speech. LOVO, an AI voice and synthetic speech startup company, uses a voiceover API to turn text into speech in real-time using 200 human-like voices in 33 languages using their "voice library." Users also can clone their own voices to create their own skins, simply by reading 15 minutes of a script.

Having machines turn text into speech is nothing new. Professor Stephen Hawking communicated with a computerized voice for many years, and by now, we're used to our GPS devices or smart speakers asking questions and responding to our queries. What is different these days is that the quality of synthesized speech is improving, thanks to several companies using AI to create voice skins for enterprise companies and content creators that give more options for turning text into speech. LOVO, an AI voice and synthetic speech startup company, uses a voiceover API to turn text into speech in real-time using 200 human-like voices in 33 languages using their "voice library." Users also can clone their own voices to create their own skins, simply by reading 15 minutes of a script.

Fred, a trans man, clicked his mouse, and his tenorful tones suddenly sank deeper. He'd switched on voice-changing algorithms that provided what sounded like an instant vocal cord transplant. "This one is'Seth,'" he said, of a persona he was testing on a Zoom call with a reporter. Then, he switched to speak as "Joe," whose voice was more nasal and upbeat. Fred's friend Jane, a trans woman also testing the prototype software, chuckled and showcased some artificial voices she liked for their feminine sound.

"Voice skins" have become a very popular feature for AI-based voice assistants, to help personalize some of the more anodyne aspects of helpful, yet also kind of bland and robotic, speaking voices you get on services like Alexa. Now a startup that is building voice skins for different companies to use across their services, and for third parties to create and apply as well, is raising some funding to fuel its growth. LOVO, the Berkeley, California-based artificial intelligence (AI) voice & synthetic speech tool developer, this week closed a $4.5 million pre-Series A round led by South Korean Kakao Entertainment along with Kakao Investment and LG CNS, an IT solution affiliate of LG Group. Its previous investor SkyDeck Fund and a private investor, vice president of finance at DoorDash, Michael Kim, also joined the funding. The proceeds will be used to propel its research and development in artificial intelligence and synthetic speech and grow the team.

As fake videos generated by AI continue to become more convincing, what was once a tool to share laughs on the internet has grown into a worrying sector of digital media. Whether it's a viral video of "Tom Cruise" doing a magic trick or "Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg" boasting about having "total control of billions of people's stolen data," deepfake videos have the capacity to cause real harm to people who fall for their deception. A Pennsylvania woman was charged last weekend with allegedly making deepfake videos of girls on a cheerleading team her daughter used to belong to – the videos showed the girls nude, smoking or partying – in an attempt to get them kicked off the team. Graphic artist Chris Ume, the mastermind behind the Tom Cruise TikTok deepfake, told CTV News that when he started making deepfake videos it was just to "have good fun." But now as manipulated media continues to make headlines, his views have changed.

Online, we can be whoever we want--a bulked-up soldier, a freakish banana, Sonic the Hedgehog--only until we start speaking. Over any online game's built-in chat or Discord, our voices have the power to immediately reveal information about our geographic region, our gender, even our ethnicity. Now, a company that makes "voice skins" is trying to change that, too. "You go online and have the freedom to design your avatar, choose your username, pick what communities you jump into. You can design your online persona completely separately from who you are in the real world," said Modulate founder Mike Pappas.

The accent, emotion, and intonation are all mine. But somehow I now sound like a youngish woman with a high-pitched voice. My feminine "voice skin" was created by Modulate.ai, The firm uses machine learning to copy, model, and manipulate the properties of voice in a powerful new way. The technology goes far beyond the simple voice filters that can let you sound like Kylo Ren.

The accent, emotion, and intonation are all mine. But somehow I now sound like a youngish woman with a high-pitched voice. My feminine "voice skin" was created by Modulate.ai, The firm uses machine learning to copy, model, and manipulate the properties of voice in a powerful new way. The technology goes far beyond the simple voice filters that can let you sound like Kylo Ren.