The new office mate’s prank will be to switch your AI’s voice to a Kardashian, Fran Drescher, Pauly Shore...
Plus I am sure that LLM engines could command a premium by shrewdly licensing such talent as James Earl Jones, Majel Barrett, or Milla Jovovich?
But it seems like the current trend is novel/generic voices in order to avoid suits/fees and pioneer new territory. Isn‘t Siri‘s personality a recognizable celebrity by now?
Because they think it makes them sound Smart? Because it's safer to fit in with the crowd than to Not? Because having a genuine personality is Difficult?
I would assume the opposite. People use it to sound dumb, not smart, so as to sound non-threatening, but also so as to sound non-assertive. It's used to defuse potential conflict or perceived disagreeableness. Generally the affect of a late-stage conflict-adverse institutionalism that punishes assertive or dominant behaviors. Uptalk is the "I'm showing my belly" of English affects.
The point of language is to have shared communication. That people adopt language standards isn't a moral failing, and accent is a legitimate part of it as it's more organic/instinctual to human interaction than grammar/diction classes.
True, but this particular style was born out of a region where people are largely known to be smug and arrogant about their intelligence/"betterness" than other people. Not sure I'd call it a moral failing as much as a marker of who to avoid (much like a dangerous plant having bright colors or scents).
As far as I can tell, it's an "I am not done talking yet" thing in many contexts. That's why people employing it usually drop the uptalk for their last sentence in a string of sentences (unless it's an actual question).
I freakin' hate telephones, and I always have, and the Dowager Countess of Grantham was correct in surmising that they are torture devices of the highest caliber.
I always try to prefer virtual meetings with video and all the trimmings, especially screen-share capability. If not, in-person. Telephoning is like a last resort. I've pondered using TTY/TDD even though I have no physical impairments, but most agencies seem hostile to that sort of barrier and most of the time, I find myself needing to pass voice-recognizing gatekeeper AIs first.
When I was promoted to "sysadmin" in my first job they set me at a desk with a computer and a PBX telephone. (It was an office at a gov't defense contractor...) The computer I could relate to on an intimate level; the telephone scared the living bejesus out of me, and I prayed it never to ring.
A disembodied voice in your ear, especially one that interrupts everything you're doing and demanding a real-time conversation across space and time, that's incredibly rude, yet normalized for 100 years. I have PTSD and other disabilities, and I can get completely rattled and downright hostile/aggro when someone calls me and I'm not prepared, I'm not at my desk, no notes in front of me, even if I'm relaxing at home I just can't deal. I may answer the phone while on a bus or train, but I certainly won't sustain a conversation that way. Outgoing calls are sometimes OK but often end in disaster as I become increasingly frustrated.
Now it's not uncommon for someone who's standing at my front door to telephone me. What the hell, I'm less than 3 yards away in here, please don't send me across Cyberspace when you're manifesting in meatspace...
On a phone call I have no idea what office I've reached, what is a person's job title or role with a company, what their face looks like, when they may be taking a breath or using other physical cues to aid the conversation. So much metadata is lost in phone conversations that they are wholly dehumanized and require a revolution in etiquette, just to keep the peace.
I'm not autistic and I can read expressions and body language, but perhaps autists are the evolutionary result of disembodied telephone conversations taking out the human element from verbal communication. It is simply amazing that even with apps and ubiquitous Internet and website portals that I still require the telephone to get important business done (and I'm always, always ticking "it's something else/other/Live Agent/Oh god this is an exception to all your rules please send me a human being").
I'm having a rough couple of months, I'll be honest. [that should be read in the least sincere "my pleasure to serve you at the window" voice you can muster]
There’s no shortage of YouTube videos aware of the uptalk or upspeak annoyances but I found this one from 1994. It seems to have spread from California Valleygirl-speak and then nationwide to college campuses.
How does LLM training get influenced (weighted) by pop culture speaking styles?
I wish it were only a California thing. The Valley Girl uptalk/vocal fry thing seems to have spread across the country. Turn on the local news station in any region of the country and you'll hear it. Everyone is for some reason trying to sound like the Real Housewives Of Orange County.
NPR's even been full of it for more than a decade now. I think at some point (the '00s?) they really relaxed their elocution standards for hosts & reporters.
It definitely makes reporting feel trustworthy and serious? When almost every statement sounds like a tentative question?
I like vocal fry as a vocal adjustment because (1) you can do it with no talent, and (2) since it is atonal you can use it and have no risk of your vocal tone slipping upward because you're under stress.
Unless you train on twitch streamers. There seems to be an unspoken rule that any successful streamer has to move to LA. If you train on youtubers you get a surprising Mormon bias instead.
I would be surprised if the majority of the training data is licensed from the speakers.
Malaysian here. Uptalk is used more to turn a sentence into a suggestion. Something like "Hey, there's one dim sum left," to suggest that I'm taking this but you can challenge it. I could see why ChatGPT would adopt it. It's trying to be polite.
Often it's in a tonal particle, "One dim sum left meh." But it's possible in trying to artificially combine tone and text, the uptalk is moved up.
But the tell tones of a Malaysian accent is it's clipped. Instead of "I don't like that idea," it becomes "Don't like it." ChatGPT may be written American, so as an accent, it would sound closer to, "I- don't like, that idea."
And sentences often end in an elongated manner, "I wrote that is essay you wanted~". The elongated ends are quite common in many SEA accents as well, especially Thai.
No offense taken. It got me curious. I actually do train AI to code in Singaporean English in my spare time, so I try to be aware, lol.
I'm not aware of voice training though. x.AI outsources lots of stuff to Malaysia. Google has some, but has had this data like for TTS, STT, and Google Translate, for a decade or so.
I believe OpenAI wants ChaptGPT to have a tone that is more casual and less professional or uptight than it was before....
And so ChatGPT relies on the training data to know what that means so it leads to it talking like this as this is what the training data is filled with.
AI accents are incredibly good these days, especially eleven labs. ChatGPT is not a leader in this. I spent about $20 on this before just because I like the sound of its voice.
No doubt the next feature will be starting every paragraph, if not every sentence, with "tsk!" (that wet clicking sound many people do with their tongue and teeth as they inhale before speaking). Pure anecdata, but I notice women doing it much more than men, and it has made its way into newscasts.
I personalized mine to "Cove" and instructed it to speak with a Scottish accent, slow and warm. I am hoping to refine it so it will more closely sound like Sean Connery, but this is the best I could do.
I'm not sure why, but the voices in voice mode are different than the voices used to dictate responses provided in "normal" mode. The latter are far better / less annoying.
