I'm struggling to think of any legitimate use cases that actually benefit society. I can only think of nefarious uses for this technology.
I know Hollywood is interested in it for maintaining the legacy of iconic voices in established IPs like James Earl Jones in Star Wars, but I don't think that benefits society overall. It is neat to potentially have his voice show up in future projects, but that feels like more of a gimmick to justify the technology rather than an actual need.
Video games and movie generation I think mostly. Llms will probably be running constantly in the background in next gen rpgs so players can have actual conversations with NPCs. Voice cloning isn't necessary but you can get better mannerisms with it currently I'm pretty sure.
I can also see celebrities and voice actors wanting to sell their voice. It doesn't require much work and voice actors are talented enough that they can offer personalized characters with different speech patterns and what not.
Yeah, I'm surprised Google or another big player hasn't released something yet, or that the people like the IETF haven't had any RFCs or produced any practical standards. Now's the time to get market dominance. Perhaps nobody will react until the shit hits the fan.
I mean, pgp is great, but in this day and age we need a simple standard people can use to sign media without a hassle and we may also need chain of custody in light of social media (edits and whatnot). Developers will likely need or want to build it into their software, so we need a standard. I don't think the pgp approach really worked for most people.
I'm calling it now. In.... 5 years AI will be so advanced and readily available that you won't be able to tell a real person from an AI in the digital realm. The biggest problem with that is when it's being used by bad actors. From scammers to presidential candidates to foreign governments. Scammers can already call your mom or dad, use AI to spoof your voice from even a sample of a recording (like a voicemail greeting), and fool them into giving them money. Anything other than in-person conversations can be fake. This can only have negative consequences.