People assume that happy voices are real, and neutral voices are AI. AI-generated voices have become so advanced that they are almost indistinguishable from real human voices.
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It is now possible to clone a person's voice just seconds after recording. Fraudsters have used this technology to mimic the voice of a person who sounds distressed to trick victims into transferring money. While machine learning experts are developing technological solutions to detect AI voices, little is known about how the human brain responds to these voices.
Trying to Identify Voices
A new study involved 43 people who were asked to listen to human and AI-generated voices expressing five different emotions: neutral, angry, fearful, happy, and amused.
They were asked to identify whether the voices were artificial or human while their brains were studied using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which detects changes in blood flow within the brain, indicating which parts of the brain are active.
Participants were also asked to evaluate the characteristics of the voices they heard. Participants correctly identified human voices only 56% of the time and AI voices 50.5% of the time, meaning they were equally bad at identifying both types of voices.
People were more likely to correctly identify the "neutral" voice as an AI voice, while for happy human voices, the correct identification rate was 78%, suggesting that people associate happiness with being more human-like.
Brain Response Differences
Current AI Voice Technology Can Imitate Human Voices
Looking at the brain imaging, the researchers found that human voices elicited stronger responses in brain regions associated with memory, while AI voices elicited stronger responses in areas related to error detection and attention regulation.
The results showed that we are not very accurate in determining whether a voice is human or generated by artificial intelligence. Participants also frequently expressed difficulty distinguishing between voices. This suggests that current AI voice technology can mimic human voices to such an extent that people find it difficult to reliably distinguish between them.
This increases the risk of this technology being used to defraud and deceive people. However, there are potential benefits, such as providing voice replacements for people who have lost their natural voice. AI voices could also be used to treat some mental health conditions.