The Daily Observer London Desk: Reporter- John Furner
ChatGPT just got chattier.
Users can now talk out loud to the AI chatbot and it will answer back with its own synthesised voice.
The feature is part of an upgrade to the mobile app and follows in the footsteps of voice assistants such as Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri.
ChatGPT has been given five different voices – both male and female – that were trained on actors hired by OpenAI, the US company behind the technology.
The firm claims they are far more realistic than rival voice assistants – and is looking at allowing users to create their own in the future.
ChatGPT users can now talk out loud to the AI chatbot and it will answer back with its own synthesised voice
Spotify has announced it is trialling the technology to translate podcasts into other languages, with an AI-generated imitation of the original host’s voice.
Voice assistants like Alexa and Siri have long allowed people to interact with their devices through their smartphones, tablets, and laptops.
But chatbots have far more powerful language skills, with the ability to instantly write emails, poetry, and riff on any topic.
OpenAI believes talking is a more natural way of interacting with ChatGPT and is rolling out the feature to everyone who subscribes to its ‘Plus’ edition, costing £16 a month.
The feature is part of an upgrade to the mobile app and follows in the footsteps of voice assistants such as Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri (File image)
Joanne Jang, a product manager at OpenAI, told MIT Technology Review: ‘In fashioning the voices, the number-one criterion was whether this is a voice you could listen to all day.’
‘We’re trying to make ChatGPT more useful and more helpful,’ she added.
As part of the upgrade, OpenAI also announced ChatGPT can also now understand pictures.
By uploading or taking a photo, ChatGPT will respond with a description of it.
In one demo, the company showed the chatbot a picture of a child’s maths homework with a Sudoku-like puzzle and asked how to solve it. ChatGPT replied with the correct steps.
ChatGPT’s image recognition ability has already been trialed by a company called Be My Eyes, which makes an app for people with impaired vision, helping them work out what’s in front of them.
