March 1, 2008
CereProc created the first ever voice clone for a synthetic voice based on data not collected for the purpose when they built a synthetic voice from George W. Bush’s White House radio broadcasts. This was packaged into a satirical flash website which you could use to generate synthetic speech spoken with George W. Bush’s voice
Although at the time, all speech synthesis voices were based on source recordings, these tended to be carefully curated and recorded. CereProc was always interested in the ability to copy or clone a voice. For G.W. Bush this was a bit of fun, but for users with voice issues it was something that was very important and could allow them to speak with a personal voice rather than one given to them by a supplier of medical equipment.
Even then we were concerend about the misuse of this type of technology which later was termed deep fakes and for the Bush website we made sure it was clearly satirical with a coartoon like look and feel as well as adding background music to prevent the misuses of any output.