Ars Technica
A speech synthesis company based in Dubai published a fictional podcast interview between Joe Rogan and Steve Jobs featuring realistic voices digitally cloned from both men. It takes place during the “first episode” of an alleged podcast series called “Podcast.ai”, created by Play.ht, which sells speech synthesis services.
In the interview, you’ll first hear a replication of Rogan’s voice created through speech cloning technology, similar to what we discussed earlier on Ars. Deep learning technology allows AI models to replicate distinctive voices with a high degree of accuracy, such as in the case of Darth Vader in Disney’s Obi-Wan Kenobi TV series.
To achieve the effect, one must first train the AI model on existing samples of the voice being cloned. Rogan is a prime target for AI voice training through deep learning models, as there are ample amounts of his isolated voice on his podcasts. In fact, in 2019, The Verge covered a PR stunt by an AI company called Dessa that synthesized Rogan.
Where this case of AI chatter gets more interesting is that Play.ht additionally whispered the voice of late Apple CEO Steve Jobs. His voice, while robotic at times choppy, recalls his Apple keynotes and All Things Digital interviews from the late 2000s. And Play.ht claims the interview text was also AI-generated, possibly from a large language model (LLM ) similar to GPT-3.
“Transcripts are generated using sophisticated language models,” Play.ht writes on the Podcast.ai website. “For example, the episode of Steve Jobs was trained on his biography and all the recordings of him that we could find online so that the AI could accurately bring him back to life.”
In keeping with his LLM roots, the 19 minute interview doesn’t make much sense. After a while, parts of the fictional interview begin to sound like conceptual mashups of common Jobs discussion points, including aesthetics, revolutionary products, competitors like Google, Microsoft, and Adobe, and the triumphs of the original Macintosh.
For example, during part of the interview, Fake Jobs delves into criticisms of Microsoft that are very similar to what the real Jobs said in a famous 1995 interview for Triumph of the Nerds, but it’s not a breakdown – and you can see that the voice is synthesized when you compare the two. “That’s the problem I’ve always had with Microsoft,” says fake Jobs. “In many ways they’re smart people and they’ve done a good job, but they’ve never had any taste. They’ve never had any aesthetic sense.”
Whether it’s legal to use Jobs or Rogan’s vocal likenesses in this way, especially to promote a commercial product, remains to be seen. And despite the podcast’s PR stunt nature, the concept of completely fictional celebrity podcasts got our attention. As speech synthesis becomes more widespread and potentially undetectable, we look to a future where media artifacts from any era will likely be completely fluid and malleable, moldable to fit any narrative. In this particular fictional world, Jobs is a huge Rogan fan.
“It’s nice to sit back in the car and listen to you,” he says.
