06/13/2023
New iPhone feature can clone your voice in just 15 minutes
Apple has unveiled a new iOS feature that allows iPhone, iPad and Mac users to make a digital clone of their voice in just 15 minutes.
The Personal Voice feature announced on Tuesday is aimed at helping those who are at risk of losing their voice, such as people with an amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) diagnosis or other neurological conditions.
The new feature forms part of a suite of updates announced ahead of Global Accessibility Awareness Day on 18 May, and will likely be rolled out as part of iOS 17 later this year.
The Motor Neurone Disease Association suggests that cloning a voice, known as voice banking, typically takes an average of two hours or longer with current tech, and can cost hundreds of pounds.
The Independent got a first look at the new feature in action, and the Personal Voice sounded remarkably similar to the user’s actual voice, albeit with a slightly robotic, synthesised tone.
It can be trained in 15 minutes simply by reading a bunch of randomly generated text prompts, and uses on-device machine learning to ensure your data is kept private and secure.