That Indian call center may not sound like an Indian call center soon

  • +5
    Sir Bedevere
    | 3 replies
    A Silicon Valley startup offers voice-altering tech to call center workers around the world... real-time voice-altering technology that aims to help call center workers around the world sound like westerners
    https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/a ... -white-american
  • +1
    GregAtTheBeach replies to Sir Bedevere
    | 2 replies
    Isn't this simply what we call a "sound board"?  If it's the same thing, they've been in use for a couple years.
  • +4
    Sir Bedevere replies to GregAtTheBeach
    No, this is AI-based software that actually changes a speaker's voice in real time.
  • +2
    MikeHuntleton replies to GregAtTheBeach
    Yes and No. A sound board just has a bunch of pre-recorded sound clips, but some have a voice changer as well. The scambait community uses voice changers all the time (Kitboga, Perogi, etc.), but those change a voice to things like a robot, girl/boy, old person, cartoon, etc. The sound pitches get changed, but if I read that Article correctly, this AI version will actually change the dialect to a Western one by changing words too.

    This is from the Article above:
    Quote:
    "Hi, good morning. I’m calling in from Bangalore, India." I’m talking on speakerphone to a man with an obvious Indian accent. He pauses. “Now I have enabled the accent translation,” he says. It’s the same person, but he sounds completely different: loud and slightly nasal, impossible to distinguish from the accents of my friends in Brooklyn.

    Only after he had spoken a few more sentences did I notice a hint of the software changing his voice: it rendered the word “technology” with an unnatural cadence and stress on the wrong syllable. Still, it was hard not to be impressed – and disturbed.

    Won't know until they start using them to find out if "dis iz dah ani-wirus sapoat" now sounds like "this is the anti-virus support" with a Brooklyn accent or not.
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