Algorithmic Ventriloquism: The Contested State of Voice in AI Speech Generators

IF 5.5 1区文学 Q1 COMMUNICATION

Social Media + Society Pub Date : 2024-01-01 DOI:10.1177/20563051231224401

Ido Ramati

引用次数: 0

Abstract

This article explores the vocal human–machine relations embedded in text-to-speech (TTS) generators. Retracing the human sources behind the synthetic speech and tracking the remediation of the voice by the machine-learning algorithm, it argues that artificial intelligence (AI) speaking agents such as Siri and Alexa, as well as other TTS acts such as TikTok’s, are performing algorithmic ventriloquism. Speaking mechanically with the voices of professional voiceover artists, AI speech technologies algorithmically manipulate these voices, thus generating personas that hold an interconnected chain of tensions between the embodied and the virtual, the particular and the general, the human and the non-human, as well as between speech and writing. Algorithmic ventriloquism serves as an analytical framework to tie the techno-vocalic operation of the TTS system with its cultural, economic, philosophical, and sociolinguistic predicaments. The last section discusses the implications of algorithmic ventriloquism beyond the realm of the voice.

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算法口技：人工智能语音生成器中饱受争议的语音状态

本文探讨了文本到语音（TTS）生成器中蕴含的人机关系。文章追溯了合成语音背后的人类来源，并追踪了机器学习算法对语音的修正，认为 Siri 和 Alexa 等人工智能（AI）语音代理以及 TikTok 等其他 TTS 行为都是在表演算法口技。人工智能语音技术机械地使用专业配音艺术家的声音说话，并对这些声音进行算法处理，从而生成了角色，在具身与虚拟、特殊与一般、人类与非人类以及语音与书写之间形成了一连串相互关联的紧张关系。算法口技作为一种分析框架，将 TTS 系统的技术发声操作与其文化、经济、哲学和社会语言学困境联系在一起。最后一节讨论了算法腹语在语音领域之外的影响。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Social Media + Society COMMUNICATION-

CiteScore

9.20

自引率

3.80%

发文量

111

审稿时长

12 weeks

期刊介绍： Social Media + Society is an open access, peer-reviewed scholarly journal that focuses on the socio-cultural, political, psychological, historical, economic, legal and policy dimensions of social media in societies past, contemporary and future. We publish interdisciplinary work that draws from the social sciences, humanities and computational social sciences, reaches out to the arts and natural sciences, and we endorse mixed methods and methodologies. The journal is open to a diversity of theoretic paradigms and methodologies. The editorial vision of Social Media + Society draws inspiration from research on social media to outline a field of study poised to reflexively grow as social technologies evolve. We foster the open access of sharing of research on the social properties of media, as they manifest themselves through the uses people make of networked platforms past and present, digital and non. The journal presents a collaborative, open, and shared space, dedicated exclusively to the study of social media and their implications for societies. It facilitates state-of-the-art research on cutting-edge trends and allows scholars to focus and track trends specific to this field of study.