In striving for diversity, a research team explored the development of a Text-to-Speech (TTS) system to represent an African American voice devoid of regional accent biases, aimed at depicting an educated and professional demographic.

• Focus groups and technical challenges are discussed, highlighting representation and voice development hurdles.
• Surprisingly, non-African American participants struggled to correctly associate the voice with African Americans, pointing to potential biases or inability to recognize certain voices as educated and professional.
• African American IT professionals affirmed the representativeness of the voice, suggesting that misunderstandings may be rooted in latent prejudices.

The endeavor to diversify AI’s voice representation tackles crucial social issues, raising awareness about inseparable biases in AI and society. Its progress could herald a future of more inclusive and varied AI agents. Read more