It seems great than an interpreter app can translate your speech in one language to another while still sounding like. Magically, a person can speak several dozen languages fluently. As a parlor trick this is great but not sure of the value beyond that given the many things that could go wrong. Impersonation and deep-fake opportunities abound. More fundamentally, people will lose desire and motivation to learn a new language, if there is such a lazy and easy alternative. The app will broker the conversation as it sees fit with both parties coming into it blind.
Learning a language is an transformative experience - a person goes from basic competency to fluency and being able to pick up on nuance and subtle humor. It is like being able to go through an obstacle course with each step providing greater clarity and freedom. With such tools, those joys will become artifacts of the past - everyone will speak like a native right from the start. Having struggled to learn new languages as an adult, I can't help wondering how I would feel to hear my voice speak fluent Arabic or Chinese - languages I have no hope of ever getting proficient at. I don't think I would be able to trust anything my cloned voice says.
Comments