Google simply launched its most spectacular (and unsettling) addition to AI Overview but, a brand new function referred to as “Audio Overview” that generates audio summaries of search outcomes, narrated within the model of two life-like, but not fairly human podcast hosts.
Audio Overview is presently an opt-in Search Labs function, that means you will not see the choice for it until you toggle a change in Search Labs. Proper now it is solely out there within the U.S. and solely generates English summaries.
I attempted out Audio Overview myself and the outcomes weren’t precisely what I used to be anticipating.
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After you activate the function in Search Labs, some Google searches will embody an Audio Overview field, often beneath the common AI Overview and “Individuals additionally ask” sections. You simply faucet the button to generate the audio abstract and anticipate it to complete processing.
The audio clip you will get is generated on the spot, so in case you refresh the web page and generate it once more, it might find yourself being completely different. The summaries I generated ranged from 3 to five minutes lengthy. All of them function the identical pair of AI-generated voices who travel discussing no matter subject you searched, within the model of a podcast.
The voices are admittedly considerably extra lifelike than the robotic Siri sound I used to be anticipating. There’s tone adjustments, conversational phrase decisions, seemingly pure language. It isn’t fairly real looking, although. The 2 voices are like a pair of podcasters with zero rapport who appear to be they’re studying off a teleprompter. It is simply shy of being lifelike however nonetheless lifelike sufficient that some individuals could possibly be fooled at first.
Google reveals you which ones search outcomes it used to generate the audio abstract, so you may double-check no matter data your AI podcasters provide you with. Nonetheless, they sound real looking sufficient that some individuals may simply assume these are actual individuals and take no matter they are saying as reality. In fact, that is additionally a problem with textual content AI summaries.
There are some hiccups that give away that these aren’t actual individuals. As an example, in one of many summaries I received, one of many AI voices asks a query then instantly solutions it herself, which sounded fairly awkward.
Each voices use emotional language infrequently, like exclaiming “Wow!” at a enjoyable reality, but it surely undoubtedly sounds stiff and simply shy of one thing an actual individual would say. The AI voices additionally mispronounce phrases every now and then, like “musk” as an alternative of “should.”
Uncanny and eerie as this function is, I can see it being useful to some individuals, particularly those that could have imaginative and prescient impairments, or in any other case depend on display studying instruments. The AI-generated voices sound fairly good for the truth that they’re AI, too.
That may be cool if it did not include a number of issues across the unfold of misinformation by AI and the menace AI-generated voices like this might pose to jobs like voice performing. Like all innovation in AI, Google’s Audio Overviews are a double-edged sword and sadly I am nonetheless extra skeptical than impressed.
