--- title: "Amazon Shows Off Tech That Lets Alexa Copy Voice of Dead Relatives" description: "Amazon is planning to allow its Alexa smart speaker to mimic the voices of deceased loved ones, arguably a rather crass failure to read the room." date: "2022-06-23" modified: "2022-06-23" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/amazon-alexa-voice-dead-relatives" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" tags: - "Alexa" - "Amazon" - "artificial intelligence" - "the digest" --- # Amazon Shows Off Tech That Lets Alexa Copy Voice of Dead Relatives ![Amazon is planning to allow its Alexa smart speaker to mimic the voices of deceased loved ones, arguably a rather crass failure to read the room.]() *\Image: Amazon\* ## Alex-sad It's something only a corporation as soulless as Amazon could dream up. The e-retailer is planning to allow its Alexa smart speaker to mimic the voices of deceased loved ones — arguably a rather "Black Mirror"-esque failure to read the room. During its annual re:Mars conference this week, Amazon’s senior vice president and head scientist for Alexa, Rohit Prasad, showed off a demo of a late grandmother's voice reading a bedtime story to a child, [*TechCrunch* reports](). "This required inventions where we had to learn to produce a high-quality voice with less than a minute of recording versus hours of recording in the studio," Prasad said at the conference, as quoted by *TechCrunch*. "The way we made it happen is by framing the problem as a voice conversion task and not a speech generation path." ## AIfter Death Despite the morbid implications of such tech, Amazon says it's an impressive example of AI technologies. Prasad called digitally waking grandmother up from her eternal slumber a big win. "We are unquestionably living in the golden era of AI, where our dreams and science fictions are becoming a reality," he added. But that's about all we know about the feature, as Amazon was rather short on details about its latest invention. It's not the first device to imitate somebody's voice. In fact, as [*Gizmodo* points out](), a similar AI-powered device by Japanese toy brand Takara Tomy can read bedtime stories to children by imitating their parents' voices. Intentionally mimicking the voices of dead relatives isn't just creepy, It could also be used for far more nefarious purposes — a [far more likely]() eventuality than you'd think. **READ MORE:** [Alexa will soon be able to read stories as your dead grandma]() \[*TechCrunch*\] **More on Alexa:** *[NASA Is Installing Amazon Alexa on Its Next Moon Mission, for Some Cursed Reason]()* ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()