I had thought it'd be fun, and uncanny, to clone my voice. I'd sought out the AI start-up ElevenLabs, paid $22 for a "creator" account, and uploaded some recordings of myself. A few hours later, I typed some words into a text box, hit "Enter," and there I was: all the nasal lilts, hesitations, pauses, and mid-Atlantic-by-way-of-Ohio vowels that make my voice mine.
The model likes to insert ums and ahs: In the recordings I gave it, I'm thinking through answers in real-time and choosing my words carefully. It's uncanny, yes, but also quite convincing-a part of my essence that's been stripped, decoded, and reassembled by a little algorithmic model so as to no longer need my pesky brain and body.
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