Google made valuable announcements and promotions at the I/O 2023 conference held last night. One of them is undoubtedly Universal Translator. The software giant is making a revolution with this artificial intelligence translation technology. On the other hand, the company clearly states that they are also aware of the risks of this technology. So what is Universal Translator and what will it do?What is Universal Translator?
Universal Translator is a feature that makes it possible to re-sound a video in a new language and also synchronize the speaker’s lip movements with the words. The first example that comes to mind is Youtube videos. In the future, it will be possible to present a video you have prepared in the language you want, as dubbed. For now, Google is testing Universal Translator technology and at the same time filing things that could lead to abuse.
Demonstrated during a presentation by James Manyika, head of Google’s new “Technology & Society” department, Universal Translator was presented as an example that recent advances in artificial intelligence have made possible, but also presenting serious risks that must be reckoned with from the start.high risk
Experimental, this feature re-voices the speaker speaking in Spanish, who is lecturing in an online course originally recorded in English. To do this, the AI first transcribes the speech, translates it, recreates the speech (matching style and tone) in the desired language, and then edits the video so that the speaker’s lips more closely match the new voice.
So basically a deepfake video is created. Therefore, Google has to scrutinize to bring this feature into our lives. Manyika calls this “the tension between courage and security”, drawing attention to the difficulty of striking a balance. Perhaps this feature could even become a company-only tool due to the mere risks of abuse. This can make the job of post-production teams easier.
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