Greetings from Fort Myers. I'm here (with almost everyone I've ever met in the advertising and media business) for the annual IAB leadership meeting. If you're here, ping me.
ElevenLabs, an AI startup specializing in voice replication technology, has banned a user account responsible for creating an audio deepfake of President Biden. The deepfake featured a message urging people not to vote in the New Hampshire primary.
Pindrop Security Inc., a voice-fraud detection company, analyzed the deepfake and identified ElevenLabs' technology as the source. Upon learning of Pindrop's findings, ElevenLabs suspended the user's account and began an investigation into the incident.
The deepfake was sophisticated enough to initially convince some listeners, including a New Hampshire voter who recognized Biden's voice but later realized it was a scam. As you can imagine, the incident has (once again) raised concerns about the potential misuse of AI in politics.
ElevenLabs is the "go to" synthetic voiceover and voice cloning site. It recently raised an $80 million round led by Andreessen Horowitz, valuing the company at more than $1.1 billion.
On its , the company states: "A very important rule applies to all uses of voice cloning technology: you cannot clone a voice for abusive purposes such as fraud, discrimination, hate speech or for any form of online abuse without infringing the law."
This admonition is about as useful as telling a preschooler with a box of crayons not to draw on the furniture. That said, the company has stated its commitment to preventing the misuse of its audio AI tools and has been developing safeguards to curb such misuse.
The problem with this story has nothing to do with technology; people will believe whatever they want to believe. When you offer facts that disprove a story someone is telling you, the most common response is, "Yes, but…" and they continue with an unchanged mind. There are no technological fixes for the willfully ignorant.
As always your thoughts and comments are both welcome and encouraged. Just reply to this email. -s
ABOUT SHELLY PALMER
Shelly Palmer is the Professor of Advanced Media in Residence at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and CEO of The Palmer Group, a consulting practice that helps Fortune 500 companies with technology, media and marketing. Named he covers tech and business for , is a regular commentator on CNN and writes a popular . He's a , and the creator of the popular, free online course, . Follow or visit .
