YouTube bets on AI integration
The Artificial Intelligence revolution is already a fact and it is a point of no return that has arrived to change our daily life both for better and for worse, with which we will have to adapt and interact yes or yes.
With the recent splendor that artificial intelligence (AI) models have had and their implementation in various products and solutions, many companies, organizations, developers, applications, among others, have seen the need to implement the use of AI in their products.
And in the case of Google, is not the exception, since the search giant in addition to betting on his own chatbot «Bard», It has also worked to implement AI in its different products. and in the note we share today, YouTube, (owned by Google) has introduced support for generating AI-generated multilingual synthetic audio tracks.
It is new experimental function for which YouTube bets, is intended to allow creators add dubs to your new and existing videos, reaching a wider international audience.
Regarding the operation of this new function, it is mentioned that the tool transcribes a video for the creator, then translates it and produces a dubbed version. The creator can review and edit the transcript before the dubbing is generated.
The company announced that is currently testing the tool with hundreds of creators and that Few languages are supported at the moment, but YouTube announced at the end of June that several more languages will be available soon.
This new feature is developed in conjunction with Aloud, an AI-powered voice-over service spun off from Google's Area 120 incubator. According to the presentation website, Aloud starts by transcribing the video and provides a transcript that he can review and edit, then Aloud translates and produces the dubbing.
“Our long-term goal is to be able to dub any language, and to that end, we will continue to test and learn from dubbing content in different regions. By helping a creator go beyond their native language, we allow them to reach a new audience. YouTube is working to make translated audio tracks sound like the creator's voice, with more expression and lip sync," says Buddhika Kottahachchi, co-founder of Aloud and newly appointed YouTube Dubbing Product Manager.
As noted above, currently fIt works exclusively with videos in English and supports dubbing in Spanish and Portuguese. But given the support from Google and the partnership with YouTube, Aloud is likely to expand its language options in the future. That said, even with a limited number of languages, Aloud could be a useful tool as more and more creators add multilingual dubs to their videos.
Until recently, Aloud was part of Google's internal incubator. Since June he has been officially integrated into the company. For now, the Aloud pilot project is primarily made up of creators who are already part of the YouTube Affiliate Program, which allows channels to monetize their uploads. Educational creators are among the first channels selected.
It is worth mentioning that as a personal comment, the implementation of this function on YouTube, on the one hand, is to be applauded and that without a doubt I hope it will be a point of reference for other similar platforms, for example in online learning platforms, with which if they implement this concept in the future, they would be expanding access to information and knowledge for many people.
And it is that who has not found articles, videos, conferences, among other things, in another language, limiting the ability to enjoy that content. For example, in the case of Linux, how many videos of conferences or courses on learning platforms do you find mostly in English or in other languages and simply do not have subtitles or those generated by the platforms simply do not even come to be considered decent.
Thinking about being able to enjoy, for example, walking or while you are doing any other activity that does not force you to be looking at the screen at all times, is undoubtedly one of the best use cases for AI up to now.
Although, there is also the other side of the coin., which for many can translate into the loss of a profession, which are translators and people who are dedicated to dubbing videos, and even this can also point to misuse, which by handling it in a relaxed way we can, for example, mention its use in Fake News.
Finally, if you are interested in knowing more about it, you can check the details in the following link