With video calls becoming more common in the age of remote and hybrid workplaces, “mute yourself” and “I think you’re muted” have become part of our everyday vocabularies. But it turns out muting yourself might not be as safe as you think.

Kevin Fu, a professor of electrical and computer engineering and computer science at Northeastern University, has figured out a way to get audio from pictures and even muted videos. Using Side Eye, a machine learning assisted tool that Fu and his research team created, Fu can determine the gender of someone speaking in the room where a photo was taken—and even the exact words they spoke.

“Imagine someone is doing a TikTok video and they mute it and dub music,” Fu says. “Have you ever been curious about what they’re really saying? Was it ‘Watermelon watermelon’ or ‘Here’s my password?’ Was somebody speaking behind them? You can actually pick up what is being spoken off camera.”

I have said it time and time again. Ironically I have been an electronic music producer for decades.

Electronic producer, singer and AI advocate Holly Herndon has drawn a comparison between AI music and sampling, saying that AI music could impact music in the same way sampling did hip-hop.

Herndon made the statement during a recent interview with Mixmag, as part of a feature entitled The rise of AI music: a force for good or a new low for artistic creativity? The feature explores the advantages and disadvantages of using AI technology to create music.

“Sampling old records to create something new led to the formation of genres like hip hop and innovative new forms of artistic expression.” She says. “AI music has the potential to do something very similar.”

Holly Herndon recently said that AI music is “our new reality”, adding that AI music could have the same impact that sampling had on hip-hop.

Imagine typing “dramatic intro music” and hearing a soaring symphony or writing “creepy footsteps” and getting high-quality sound effects. That’s the promise of Stable Audio, a text-to-audio AI model announced Wednesday by Stability AI that can synthesize stereo 44.1 kHz music or sounds from written descriptions. Before long, similar technology may challenge musicians for their jobs.

Now Stability and Harmonai want to break into commercial AI audio production with Stable Audio. Judging by production samples, it seems like a significant audio quality upgrade from previous AI audio generators we’ve seen.

The company announced a slew of AI-powered tools including backgrounds and video topic suggestions at its creator event.

More content on YouTube is going to be created at least in part using generative AI. The video platform announced several new AI-powered tools for creators at its annual Made on YouTube event on Thursday. Among the features coming later this year or next are AI-generated photo and video backgrounds, AI video topic suggestions, and music search.

A new feature called Dream Screen will create AI-generated videos and photos that creators can place in the background of their YouTube Shorts. Initially, creators will be able to type in prompts to generate backgrounds; eventually,… More.

A slew of new AI-powered tools is coming to creators.