🤐 Yes, you can now talk like Trump and marry robots

Algorology Digest #7: Limits of AI, Shark Spotter Drones, Neuralink

Speech synthesis or so-called text-to-speech is a widely used technology nowadays and recently has been getting exponential improvements to both speed of voice generation and realistic sounding. Most of those are attributed to the deep learning neural networks and cheap computational resources.

Thus companies like Adobe are even able to create photoshop-like apps for voice. Their recent presentation of VoCo product that allowed to edit human speech within a simple typing interface has been all over the press.

The technology behind VoCo can essentially make you say things that you’ve never said. It does it by generating words using speaker’s voice. Basically the algorithms can understand what makes up the specific person’s voice and replicate it. Though this requires some substantial amount of data on this person talking, approximately 20 minutes of real speech.

But yesterday a startup named Lyrebird unveiled its first product: a set of algorithms the company claims can clone anyone’s voice by listening to just a single minute of sample audio.

And yes, you can finally talk like Trump or Obama, here’s a cool demo of two famous politicians discussing the startup:

Quite disturbing news for makers of biometric security systems and for politicians especially, with the recent advances in the ability to generate fake visuals of people saying things they haven’t said.

🦈 Detecting Sharks via Drones and Deep Learning

Quite a cool and useful application of drones combined with deep neural networks used for computer vision and object recognition.

“The system will give an overhead warning to swimmers/surfers when a shark or a potential risk is detected, using an on-board megaphone attached to the drones. This cutting-edge AI system developed by UTS will create a positive impact for the public, making beach recreation much safer.”

Sharkspotter-a world first in shark detection

🤕 Elon Musk And A Master Plan Behind Neuralink

If you somehow missed out a VERY LONG read on the most recent Elon’s company called Neuralink (yes, the one merging humans and AI), this is definitely a must read. Though it may take a couple of evenings to digest.

Neuralink and the Brain's Magical Future - Wait But Why

🚧 The Current Limits Behind Artificial Intelligence

A really great interview on the limits of current machine learning methods with Gary Marcus, who sold his company to Uber.

NYU's Gary Marcus is an artificial intelligence contrarian - Technical.ly Brooklyn

💒 Artificial Intelligence Engineer Marries Robot

And of course a fascinating story about AI researcher who just couldn’t find himself a wife and married robot of his own creation.

Zheng Jiajia, 31, is an engineer specializing in AI, so had all the skills to design and programmed his partner to his exacting specifications.

He built the ‘female’ robot named Yingying at the end of 2016 and things moved fast. Just a few months later they tied the knot, in a ceremony which, disappointingly, was not legally binding.

Chinese engineer gives up on search for a spouse and builds robo-wife

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