Amazon AI to dub films without using actors

POOR dubbing on films could soon be a thing of the past after Amazon began development of an artificial intelligence that can recreate an actor’s accent.

The company has patented a system that allows computers to analyse the voices of stars such as Tom Cruise by studying their films. The system could then automatically generate authentic-sounding foreign language versions without any need for voiceover actors to dub the audio.

The company used the example of The Last Samurai as an example use of the technology in its patent filing. By analysing how Cruise sounds in other films such as Mission Impossible and Rain Man, Amazon could recreate his lines from The Last Samurai in French or Polish while still sounding recognisable.

Amazon could use the technology to automatically convert thousands of foreign films and television shows into English to stream on its Amazon Prime Video service.

It could allow the site to get an edge over its streaming rivals.

In a sign of a shift away from traditional Hollywood, Amazon was up for 10 nominations at last night’s Golden Globes, including nods for Borat Subsequent Moviefilm and its Small Axe anthology series. Netflix had a staggering 42 nominations across the film and television categories, including The Trial of the Chicago 7, The Queen’s Gambit, and The Crown.

While it could lead to better-dubbed films, advances in creating realistic-sounding speech from famous people could also lead to renewed fears of “deepfakes”, in which technology is used to create videos that show public figures saying things they never actually said.