Grimes: AI Voice Clone

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"This is going to take a little bit of explaining," says host Jeff Yang. "Grimes considers herself a cyborg." She agreed to answer some of our questions via email, and then we got those emailed answers as forwarded to us by her manager. We asked Grimes, why did you decide to give the entire internet control of your voice? And when the Drake weekend stuff went viral, I realized this was pretty accessible technology.

In Part 1 of this series, AI proved that it could use real research and real interviews to write an original script for an episode of Planet Money. Our next task was to teach the computer how to sound like us. How to read that script aloud like a Planet Money host.

On today's show, we explore the world of AI-generated voices, which have become so lifelike in recent years that they can credibly imitate specific people. To test the limits of the technology, we attempt to create our own synthetic voice by training a computer on recordings of former Planet Money host Robert Smith. Then we introduce synthetic Robert to his very human namesake.

There are a lot of ethical, and economic, questions raised by a technology that can duplicate anyone's voice. To help us make sense of it all, we seek the advice of an artist who has embraced AI voice clones: the musician Grimes.

This episode was produced by Emma Peaslee and Willa Rubin, with help from Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It was edited by Keith Romer and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Engineering by James Willetts. Jess Jiang is our acting executive producer.

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