Flirting with Artificial Intelligence..... No, really

How do we feel about this, people? Artificial intelligence (AI) already plays a huge and important part in our lives in so many ways - through our devices, AI underpins a lot our choices on where to eat, what to watch, which news and products we are exposed to and so on, while increasingly, what would formerly have been life-or-death judgments formerly made by the likes of pilots and doctors are now in the, erm, hands and minds of AI. And now, the technology is being breathed into our love lives. This 'What’s Her Secret?' ad is for London, UK-based software company Sonantic, who says: "...we’re unveiling our most realistic demo to date: The video marks two significant breakthroughs in Sonantic’s technology, as we’ve perfected subtle emotions and non-speech sounds such as laughing and breathing. After many months of hard work, this is an incredibly proud moment for our team. We’re thrilled to offer our customers more creative possibilities than ever before, as we take one step closer to becoming the CGI of audio." And that's clearly great for them. What about the rest of us? Don't we have enough on our hands trying to interpret each other's intentions and expressions without laying artificiality over 'intimacy'? As a voice talent, I can still out-perform this artificial gal, but how soon will the tech become perhaps not even more realistic, but more desirable/popular? It has implications beyond putting voiceover talents out of work. The tech giants already attracted some scrutiny when home appliances such as Siri, Cortana and Alexa were all launched with female voices, sparking conversation about the societal implications of anyone, incuding the kids, being able to bark orders at a feminised machine without any pleases or thank yous. Not to mention some hasty tweaks to the tech. Does anyone else get chills at the final sentence in this ad - "What do you want me to say?"

Keywords: Sonantic What's Her Secret, CGI of audio, AI voice, artificial intelligence voices, voice technology, voice platform