Technology approaches real human voices; could ‘new reality’ of fake audio be on horizon?

Chicagotribune.com asks: What if you could make President Trump say whatever you wanted? How about listening to the vaguely robot-like voice of yourself, programmed into an app based on a sample of your speech?

The technology will be ready “soon,” according to a team of researchers from the University of Montreal’s institute for computer-based learning algorithms.

Now they’re seeking investors for their product, Lyrebird, and hope to join Google in the fast-expanding business of mimicking human voices.

Virtual assistants such as Alexa and Siri have driven the voice technology into the mainstream, where we can control our phones, cars and even refrigerators through verbal commands. And now we face a future where the perfect vocal replication of the president of the United States — or you, or anyone — could be just a few years away, some experts say. How does that future sound?

Read more at http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/science/ct-technology-fake-human-voices-20170504-story.html