By NEN SATOMI/ Staff Writer
May 10, 2023 at 16:02 JST
AI expert Takahiro Anno, seated with a mouthpiece, demonstrates AI-powered voice cloning by replicating the voice of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, second from right, at the prime minister’s office in Tokyo on May 9. (Koichi Ueda)
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida was clearly stunned by voice cloning technology when he heard his own voice generated by artificial intelligence.
“When I speak into this mouthpiece, prime minister, my voice will be changed in real time to sound like yours,” said AI expert Takahiro Anno as he eerily mimicked the sound, tone and pitch of Kishida’s speech pattern.
Anno and other experts were invited to the prime minister’s office on May 9 to discuss the benefits and risks of rapidly growing AI technologies.
Anno, 32, a tech startup co-founder and an award-winning science fiction writer, said he demonstrated voice cloning to highlight the risk of deep fake voices and images being created and spread by AI.
“Our society needs to develop more AI literacy,” he said.
Anno gave the AI program two hours to learn the prime minister’s manner of speaking before demonstrating the real-time voice changer.
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