Voice-Cloning Tech Coming to iPhone, iPad to Help Those With Disabilities Speak

pcmag.com:

Although voice-cloning software has already been raising alarm bells over its potential misuse, Apple is tapping the technology to help those with disabilities speak. 

The company today previewed(Opens in a new window) its “Personal Voice" feature, which will arrive through a collection of new accessibility improvements later this year for the iPhone and iPad. 

“Those at risk of losing their ability to speak can use Personal Voice to create a synthesized voice that sounds like them for connecting with family and friends,” Apple says.

The feature could be helpful for people suffering from conditions such as Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) or Lou Gehrig’s disease, which can break down nerve cells and prevent someone from speaking in their normal voice.

Apple’s system requires people to record 15 minutes of audio on an iPhone or iPad, which should be enough audio to clone their voice. From there, the user can type in what they want to say and Apple’s hardware will read it out loud in their synthesized voice. 

“This speech accessibility feature uses on-device machine learning to keep users’ information private and secure,” Apple adds. So the cloned voice will live on the user’s phone, and nowhere else, preventing others from accessing it.  

The feature seems similar to Samsung’s voice-cloning feature, which has launched on certain Galaxy phones in Korea. But in Samsung’s case, the company is applying the voice-cloning tech for consumers when they’re in a noisy area or need to remain silent. Apple, on the other hand, has developed Personal Voice as an accessibility feature. 

For people who can’t speak, Apple created a feature called Live Speech. “Users can type what they want to say to have it be spoken out loud during