TikTok now lets users create an AI simulation of their own voice within the app, allowing them to voice over TikTok clips with their own digital voice rather than a generic template speaker within the app.
As you can see in this example posted by app researcher Jonah Manzano, some TikTok users currently have the option to “Create your own AI voice” within their video's narration options.
If you choose, you can create an AI voice by speaking into your device, which you can then use in future clips, saving you from overtaxing your precious vocal cords.You can also translate your custom voiceover into other languages.
The option is the result of TikTok's parent company ByteDance's research into AI voice replication and is another element of the company's broader AI push.
In January, Business Insider reported that ByteDance had developed a new AI model that can reliably reproduce anyone's voice with minimal input.
ByteDance's “StreamVoice” system can recreate a person's voice in real time with just a few utterances, making it possible to reproduce the speaking voice of virtually anyone (you can hear an example of StreamVoice's output here).
This also seems problematic in that it could allow for deepfakes and hoaxes that are more believable based on people's real voices.
This may not actually be a good addition, but for some reason, the social platform seems convinced that creating an AI version of themselves is something people really want to do, and Meta now lets creators build AI chatbots that respond in their own style and voice.
But why?
Do people really want to interact with bot versions of real humans, as opposed to real social interactions with other humans?
It makes sense from an efficiency standpoint — Meta says that famous creators have so many messages to respond to and often ask general questions that a chatbot modeled after them could be useful in some situations — but it's not social. In fact, it's the exact opposite of what social media was designed to facilitate, and I don't think fans are all that keen to embrace it as an alternative.
This makes more sense for TikTok as the application will allow you to use your own voice in your clips instead of the stock bot voice that you hear in all your other clips.
Language translation is also a huge bonus and there's obviously value there, but if you're not actually using language translation (which I would imagine the majority of TikTok contributors don't), is it really going to be that hard to put audio on your clips?
Is this a big time saver or benefit?
I'm not sure, but it feels like social platforms are looking for problems that AI can “solve” but without a clear use case, they're just adopting whatever they can based on the technology they're developing.
But all of these AI elements move away from the core of real human interaction that social platforms are based on, and as a result offer little value. Sure, they all have novelty value, but will they become lasting, ongoing value-added tools that improve the user experience of each app?
Again, I think this example is better than the other AI-creation tools that social platforms are rolling out, but it remains to be seen whether it's truly valuable.
