October 8, 2020
CereProc, collaborating with Accenture Labs created the world’s first non-binary synthetic voice that combined male and female data from transgender and non-binary individuals for the global digital assistant market. The companies released all materials to generate the voice to the Open Source community.
By applying sophisticated machine learning modelling techniques with CereProc’s Neural TTS system, CereWave A.I., CereProc was able to mix genders and non-binary prosody across voices, creating ‘Sam’. Producing a complex gender voice is not just a matter of changing the pitch of the voice but of modelling speech styles and the vocal tract. The technology developed in this project has given CereProc the ability to mix genders across voices and even take a voice changing its gender completely.
Read more on the CerePorc site here .
Read the paper on the voice building process presented at CHI 2023.