“But there’s an inherent tension here: Some of the same underlying technology could be misused by bad actors to create deepfakes. “This is an enormous step forward for learning comprehension, and we’re seeing promising results in course completion rates,” Manyika said. Yet the benefits - for example, making an online course available in 20 languages without subtitles or re-recording - are undeniable. But clearly it can’t just be released widely for anyone to use with no restrictions. Manyika called this a “tension between boldness and safety,” and striking a balance can be difficult. Neither is Universal Translator - yet - but if it is ever to be so, Google needs to reckon with the possibility of it being used to create disinformation or other unforeseen hazards. (The demo was impressive, but it must be said the tech still has a way to go.)īut those tools are professional ones being made available in a strict media workflow, not a checkbox on a YouTube upload page. There are actually companies that do this kind of thing right now in the media world, redubbing lines in post-production for any of a dozen reasons. So it’s basically a deepfake generator, right? Yes, but the technology that’s used for malicious purposes elsewhere has genuine utility.

The “experimental” service takes an input video, in this case a lecture from an online course originally recorded in English, transcribes the speech, translates it, regenerates the speech (matching style and tone) in that language, and then edits the video so that the speaker’s lips more closely match the new audio. It was offered as an example of something only recently made possible by advances in AI, but simultaneously presenting serious risks that have to be reckoned with from the start. “Universal Translator” was shown off at Google I/O during a presentation by James Manyika, who heads up the company’s new “Technology and Society” department.

It could be very useful for a lot of reasons, but the company was upfront about the possibility of abuse and the steps taken to prevent it. Google is testing a powerful new translation service that redubs video in a new language while also synchronizing the speaker’s lips with words they never spoke.

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