The Evolution of Text-to-Speech Tech: How Do AI Voices Work?

In this modern world we live in, we no longer need any human assistance to create a voice that sounds exactly like another human would.

Text-to-speech technology has dramatically transformed our reality, from assisting drivers navigating unfamiliar terrains with a GPS to helping visually impaired people in reading.

Over the years, text-to-speech has made our lives significantly easier. Let’s stop for a moment and take a good look at how this technology came into play, and how it’s being revolutionized by AI right now.

Early Days of Text-to-Speech Tech

The first ventures into text-to-speech technology started in the mid-20th century when the first computer-based speech synthesis systems were created.

These early systems were extremely rudimentary, with robotic voices that didn’t resemble real human speech very much – but they were comprehensible, which was a huge success in itself.

Over the years, this technology was further developed and evolved, and today, we have easy access to free text-to-speech tools that anyone can use to enhance their content.

The earliest text-to-speech systems used formant synthesis – a process that recreated human speech by synthesizing the basic components of sounds and putting them together in a harmonious order.

Even though these systems sounded robotic and lacked many complexities of human speech, they were very efficient at creating aids for people who had trouble reading text.

Nowadays, we don’t have to resort to these rudimentary techniques. In fact, text-to-speech technology has progressed so far that it’s now readily available to anyone with internet access, without requiring any technical skills.

CapCut - a free online video and image editing software developed by the creators of TikTok – can create lifelike voices with ease, allowing users to select from a variety of templates and create voiceovers in many different languages, including English, Korean, Turkish, Spanish, Russian, German, Arabic, and more!

The Challenges of Old TTS Technology and the Advent of AI

One of the biggest challenges of the early text-to-speech systems was truthfully replicating human speech – the rich variation and intonation that goes into every spoken sentence. Our speech isn’t just a series of words.

It has a rhythm, stress, pitch, and tone, which all carry emotional and meaningful information in addition to the words. Traditional TTS systems couldn’t replicate these complexities, resulting in flat, emotionless speech.

Then, something new came along – Artificial Intelligence. With AI and deep learning models, artificial neural networks were designed to mimic human brain functioning.

These networks helped create a new era of text-to-speech technology, where AI is used to learn and generate speech directly from text.

AI-based text-to-speech takes advantage of massive amounts of data and sophisticated algorithms, generating incredibly realistic human speech with all its unique features. The algorithms train on existing databases of human speech, learning patterns, and subtleties similar to how a human would learn a language.

First, the model is trained to understand phonetics and how different words are pronounced in various contexts. Then, the AI learns about capturing the right rhythm and intonation, implementing natural stress patterns that add emotions and meaning beyond bare words.

Today, creating a realistic text-to-speech voiceover is as simple as writing the text and selecting a voice. CapCut, for example, provides a vast library of male and female voices to choose from, allowing users to select one that fits perfectly with their video.

The speech rate and volume can be easily adjusted, creating accurate and realistic TTS in a matter of minutes.

Text-to-speech isn’t the only AI-powered tool that CapCut offers. Users of the free online image and video editor can also take advantage of AI image style transfer, AI portrait generator, AI image and video upscaling, photo colorizer, and AI-powered color correction.

With advances in artificial intelligence, editors no longer have to test and try different techniques – the AI will select the most suitable one on its own, enhancing images and videos effortlessly.

The Future of Text-to-Speech Technology

Today, text-to-speech technology no longer produces a dehumanized, lifeless voice that sounds like early 2000s synthesizers (remember Ivona?).

With AI voices, even users without any technical knowledge can create a highly customizable voiceover, altering its speed, tone, accent, and many more aspects of the voice.

These voices have tons of applications, from creating talking virtual assistants and accessibility aids to making audiobooks or video games without having to hire voice actors.

As we move towards the future of TTS technology, we’ll be able to create more lifelike, expressive, and personalizable voices. Pretty soon, AI voiceovers may be indistinguishable from human speech, capable of conveying any emotion the author desires.

This, of course, creates new issues that humanity will have to deal with – like the currently ongoing SAG-AFTRA (The Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) strikes that dispute studio usage of AI to recreate faces and voices of actors.

This story was distributed as a release by Ascend under HackerNoon’s Brand As An Author Program. Learn more about the program here: https://business.hackernoon.com/brand-as-author