Amazon demonstrates Alexa mimicking the voice of a deceased relative

At Amazon’s recent Re:Mars Conference in Las Vegas last month, senior Vice President and head scientist for the Alexa team, Rohit Prasad, demonstrated a feature that will allow Alexa to replicate a specific human voice. Alexa needs “less than a minute of recorded audio” to mimic the voice.

In the demonstration, a child asked Alexa for “Grandma to read a story.” Alexa confirmed the request in the default robotic voice and then switched to a more humanlike tone which seemingly mimicked the family member’s voice.

The feature is currently in development and Prasad did not announce when the final feature will be available to the public.

For more information, see Annie Palmer “Amazon demonstrates Alexa mimicking the voice of deceased relative,” CNBC, June 22, 2022.

If this feature works for deceased people, it will certainly work for the living as well. Thus, whenever you get a phone call from someone whose voice you recognize, you may not be able to rely on the identification. I suggest code words to be embedded in the first sentence of conversations to assure identity!

Special thanks to David S. Luber (Florida Probate Attorney) and Jerry Cooper (Publisher, Marina Media, LLC) for bringing this article to my attention.