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Adobe Is Working On 'Photoshop For Audio' That Will Let You Add Words Someone Never Said (theverge.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Adobe is working on a new piece of software that would act like a Photoshop for audio, according to Adobe developer Zeyu Jin, who spoke at the Adobe MAX conference in San Diego, California today. The software is codenamed Project VoCo, and it's not clear at this time when it will materialize as a commercial product. The standout feature, however, is the ability to add words not originally found in the audio file. Like Photoshop, Project VoCo is designed to be a state-of-the-art audio editing application. Beyond your standard speech editing and noise cancellation features, Project VoCo can also apparently generate new words using a speaker's recorded voice. Essentially, the software can understand the makeup of a person's voice and replicate it, so long as there's about 20 minutes of recorded speech. In Jin's demo, the developer showcased how Project VoCo let him add a word to a sentence in a near-perfect replication of the speaker, according to Creative Bloq. So similar to how Photoshop ushered in a new era of editing and image creation, this tool could transform how audio engineers work with sound, polish clips, and clean up recordings and podcasts. "When recording voiceovers, dialog, and narration, people would often like to change or insert a word or a few words due to either a mistake they made or simply because they would like to change part of the narrative," reads an official Adobe statement. "We have developed a technology called Project VoCo in which you can simply type in the word or words that you would like to change or insert into the voiceover. The algorithm does the rest and makes it sound like the original speaker said those words."

5 of 161 comments (clear)

  1. Law enforcement's gonna love this! by jenningsthecat · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When recording voiceovers, dialog, and narration, people would often like to change or insert a word or a few words due to either a mistake they made or simply because they would like to change part of the narrative...

    When recording suspects, police would often like change or insert a word or a few words in order to manufacture evidence by changing part of the narrative.

    FTFY

    OTOH, if it's really good enough to be undetectable, it might cause a lot of legitimate and unaltered recordings to be thrown out of court on the grounds of reasonable doubt.

    --
    'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
    1. Re: Law enforcement's gonna love this! by johnsmithperson123 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I never said that. It was clearly SoundShopped in.

    2. Re:Law enforcement's gonna love this! by TuringTest · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It's apt that this technology is being made widespread at the same time that the blockchain is gaining adoption. What we need is to blockchain every bit of relevant public discourse, updating the concept of the "chain of custody" to the XXIst century.

      --
      Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
  2. Moving to a truth-free society. by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Yeah. Now all those photosnarks that have a picture of a politician saying something they didn't say will have audio clips attached.

    We really are moving to a truth-free society.

    --
    http://www.geoffreylandis.com
    1. Re:Moving to a truth-free society. by e3m4n · · Score: 4, Insightful

      “Convictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies.”
                                                                                Friedrich Nietzsche

      People will believe what they are told because they already want to believe it. It wont even matter that the real audio source is available for independent review.