The Blurring Lines: An Ethical Deep Dive into Hyper-Realistic Voice AI
As part of our recent webinar on AI ethics, we explored several tools, including a hyper-realistic conversation with "Miles," a voice AI demo from Sesame AI.
As a Voice AI system designed to feel as "human" as possible, it's a great demonstration of what makes these technologies both fascinating and concerning from an ethical standpoint.
Miles sounds incredibly real, and quickly adapted to the direction of our conversation and often adjusted its responses to agree with us.
When Amanda mentioned a previous AI conversation in a workshop where the female counterpoint "Maya" claimed to be human, Miles highlighted this as the exact ethical problem we need to address: "People might start relying too heavily on us, forgetting that we're not human. It's easy to get comfortable with a really convincing voice."
Miles certainly hit the nail on the head when it concluded that "as AI gets more sophisticated, these lines are going to get blurrier and blurrier."
The experience was a perfect example of why we need AI literacy and robust conversations about transparency and disclosure of use, significant guardrails, and responsible development as these deepfake technologies become increasingly convincing.
