‘s international distribution experimented with voice cloning so that the reader can better focus on the interesting environment shown by the video.
The small room has a desk, a fridge and not much else.
There, Akihito, 26, from Tokyo, had spent much of his time in isolation for the past ten years.
But at the end of last year, he let go of ‘s foreign editor Jenny Matikainen and the graph Benjamin Finland home and told the camera how it feels when you can’t face others after all.
In a traditional story, the video would have Finnish subtitles. Many of the details in Akihito’s room would probably be missed when focusing on reading the translated texts.
There are no subtitles in this 180-degree video of our story about Japan’s isolated sweat lodges. Akihito and the other interviewees speak Finnish in their own voice.
In this way, the reader has the opportunity to fully immerse himself in the thoughts of the interviewees and the exploration of the environment shown in the video. Has Akihito been staring at the same cleaning supplies sitting on the shelf for years?
We created the speech of the interviewees by sound cloning with the help of artificial intelligence.
In practice, we copied the tone of voice of Tokyo men, but the language was changed to Finnish. You can read more about the different stages of cloning at the end of the hikikomori story.
With the videos below, you can compare the clone voice made by and the original speech. Akihito talks about isolation in Finnish and Japanese:
There is a motley group on the Internet companies that offer voice cloning easily and cheaply. The user is not always sure whether the sound uploaded to the service can end up, for example, as part of the company’s sound library.
That was one of the main reasons why we built the sound clones ourselves. The voices of the Japanese interviewees were never released outside of . Everyone had given their consent to the cloning.
Voice cloning can be a big opportunity for journalism.
After all, the goal of us foreign journalists is to bring the people we meet in different corners of the world and their stories to Finns as authentically and truthfully as possible.
has already done several immersive stuff, where, for example, the reader can get to the place almost as if in virtual reality.
Subtitles familiar from television are not suitable for such implementations. When the story is conveyed in the Finnish language and even more so in the interviewee’s own, almost authentic-sounding voice, the reader can perhaps even better relate to the topic of the story.
Artificial intelligence can be used to break language barriers in the future. So far, has used voice cloning in news reports only in this story as an experiment.
Elsewhere, voice clones are becoming more common.
American pop singer Lauv tried to please his South Korean fans and released his song Love U Like That in Korean at the end of the year with voice cloning, because he doesn’t know the language himself. Almost pop stars can produce endless language versions of their songs.
The Ukrainian voice clone company, on the other hand, asked international celebrities for permission use their voice to messages encouraging Ukrainians to persevere in the midst of a terrible war.
Of course, they have taken the opportunity as well spreaders of disinformation. For example, during the Slovakian elections, cybercriminals created an audio tape in which the cloned voice of the leader of the progressive party speaks confusedly about, among other things, pregnant men.
Artificial intelligence can break language barriers, for better or for worse. It can be a great benefit to journalism if used responsibly.
What do you think of our voice cloning experiment? You can share your thoughts in the discussion below. The conversation requires a Tunus.
The author is the producer of the hikikomori story in ‘s foreign distribution.