Current Events > Eric Adams uses AI to fake his voice in multilingual ads

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Eric Adams, New York Citys lightning-rod mayor, has sparked new controversy over his use of artificial intelligence-powered robocalls that made it seem like he could speak languages like Yiddish, Urdu and Mandarin.
Adams on Monday revealed that his office had used AI software to reproduce his voice in dozens of languages, promoting an advertisement for city-sponsored job fairs. The messages didnt explain that they were made with AI and left voters believing that Adams spoke those languages.

"People stop me in the street all of the time and say, 'I didnt know you speak Mandarin,'" he said at a press conference on Monday.

In fact, Adams speaks only English, and while the obfuscation with the robocalls has relatively minor stakes, it prompted fresh backlash against the mayor who has relished his status as a combative provocateur and highlights growing concerns about how AI will be used in politics as next years presidential election nears.

Albert Fox Cahn, executive director of the watchdog Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, called the mayors actions "deeply unethical, especially on the taxpayers dime."

"Using AI to convince New Yorkers that he speaks languages that he doesnt is deeply Orwellian," Fox Cahn told the New York Daily News. "Yes, we need announcements in all of New Yorkers native languages, but [the robocalls] are just a creepy vanity project."

Adams shrugged off questions about the ethics around his fake-voice ads, saying that the robocalls helped make his administration seem more welcoming and were a useful tool to extend outreach to non-English-speaking communities that they might otherwise struggle to reach. Those people "could care less if it was a machine, or it was actually a human being," Adams said at the press conference.

The belated disclosure about the robocalls came as Adams announced his new "Artificial Intelligence Action Plan" for New York, a 37-item list of various initiatives using the technology, and a new chatbot tool for local businesses struggling to understand and follow city rules.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/controversial-nyc-mayor-eric-adams-used-ai-to-fake-his-voice-in-ads/ar-AA1ijuVY

This is news? Isnt this the kind of thing AI is supposed to help with? Seems like the issue here is to protect these kind of calls from being abused/impersonated.

In another world this would be seen as a really cool use of technology.

BigMeatyClaws posted...

This is news? Isnt this the kind of thing AI is supposed to help with? Seems like the issue here is to protect these kind of calls from being abused/impersonated

this is the kind of thing a human being could be employed to do, but a rich person wanted to save money