Meta Adds Celebrity Voices to its AI Chatbot

Some acquainted voices can be coming to Meta‘s AI chatbots on Fb, Instagram and WhatsApp.

At a Meta Join occasion on Wednesday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg introduced the voice updates to the corporate’s suite of AI merchandise alongside different choices like AI dubbing and instruments to make use of AI to edit images.

Zuckerberg mentioned that the voice performance will start rolling out this week.

“We wish to make this enjoyable, all proper? So along with the completely different system voices that we inbuilt that I believe are are fairly good, we’ve additionally labored with a number of the most iconic voices on the market to convey them to Meta AI,” Zuckerberg mentioned onstage earlier than starting a dwell demo that includes the voice of Awkwafina.

“Are dwell demos dangerous?” Zuckerberg requested.

“Stay demos will be dangerous, sure,” the AI system responded in Awkwafina’s voice. “They are often unpredictable, liable to technical points and probably embarrassing, nevertheless, they can be participating.”

Zuckerberg mentioned he would proceed anyway, with Awkwafina’s voice replying, “go for it. Simply be ready for something to occur. Fingers crossed.”

The Meta AI celebrity-voiced chatbots come just some months after OpenAI discovered itself in sizzling water because it introduced its personal voice product. When OpenAI introduced its “voice mode,” one of many voices sounded suspiciously like Scarlett Johansson, who portrayed an emotive AI within the movie Her.

The actress subsequently mentioned that she had been approached by OpenAI chief Sam Altman about contributing her voice to the product.

Presumably Meta is utilizing its movie star voices not solely with permission, but additionally compensation. A supply aware of final yr’s Meta chatbots (which featured the likenesses of celebrities, if not their voices) mentioned that the corporate was providing offers price tens of millions of {dollars} to safe the usage of their likenesses and voices.

The corporate additionally introduced different updates and merchandise on the occasion, together with a prototype glasses product referred to as “Orion,” a less expensive model of its Quest VR headseat, and different AI options, like AI-generated picture modifying and automatic language dubbing for movies.