Andrew Mason bought Lyrebird for $15 million so people can fake their own voice for podcasting

Now podcasting is becoming more and more common in the world, radio is a thing of the past, so a startup called Descript is becoming popular. Descript is a podcast creation tool that allows people to magically create audio of their own voices based on the text they type.

Descript, the latest startup from Groupon founder Andrew Mason, has raised $15 million in funding to expand the business from venture funds Andreessen Horowitz and Redpoint Venture. At the same time, the company bought a small Canadian Startup Lyrebird, which allows as well as Descript to voice text and copy voice.

Lyrebird has been developing technologies to copy the user's voice based on existing recordings using artificial intelligence. It also allowed to voice the text using a prerecorded voice sample.

After the purchase of Lyrebird, the creators of Descript announced the start of beta testing of the Overdub feature. With its help, users can create templates of their voices and voice the text printed in the application. It will also allow users to edit multiple voices on multiple tracks.

The founder of Groupon notes that artificial intelligence and natural language processing technologies need to be developed, as well as to analyze their capabilities and weaknesses. Systems such as Descript can be used by attackers to create fake video and audio recordings.

According to Andrew Mason, users have realized the possibility of creating deepfake. The company's mission is to ensure awareness of the problem.

Descript cannot be used to fake someone else's voice. “You need to record yourself speaking randomly generated sentences, preventing others from using pre-existing recordings to create a model of your voice”, according to a blog post from Descript CEO Andrew Mason.

Experts believe that deepfake technology, which has become available to the average person, is a big threat. People still trust the videos, believing that they can’t be faked. Deepfake technologies can pose a serious danger, both for an individual and for States.

Recall that EhackingNews previously reported that fake videos appeared on the Internet with overlapping faces and voices of famous people with the help of which scammers steal funds. . Cybersecurity experts fear that there will be more and more such cases of fraud.

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