Celebrities support Ukraine in the Ukrainian language using voice cloning technology
After Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, many celebrities, business leaders, and influencers in the art sphere expressed their support for Ukraine. They went to the frontline of the information war and began to spread information about the invasion to their audiences, encouraging them to support Ukraine and disparage the invader.
Russian aggression not only targets Ukrainian territories and people’s lives, but also the Ukrainian language and culture, which are indispensable parts of the national identity.
Respeecher invites these influential people to support Ukraine and its culture in the Ukrainian language by using voice cloning technology powered by artificial intelligence.
Abby Savage, the lead actress of the Netflix series “Orange Is the New Black” participated in the Speak Ukrainian campaign. The point of the campaign, initiated by Respeecher, is to encourage celebrities to support Ukrainians during these extremely tough times in the Ukrainian language. This has become possible thanks to advanced AI voice synthesizing technology.
Abby says: “This war is real. And Ukrainians are fighting not only for their land, culture, and freedom, but for their lives.”
The aim of Respeecher’s campaign is to show Ukrainians that people from all over the world support them in their fight against Russian aggression. And that they have every right to protect their culture, freedom, and democracy.
It is important to remember that every voice is valuable. Voice synthesizing technology allows celebrities to reach Ukrainians’ hearts in their language and express feelings of support.
As Abby Savage said in her message: “We are with you. You are in the prayers of many millions of people all around the globe. You are in our thoughts. Please keep standing strong. We look at you and you inspire millions. We are all Ukrainians now. Share your Ukrainian voice.”
We are grateful to our friend Abby Savage for the words of support.
Maye Musk also joined the campaign just after the invasion began. “You are brave and you will win”, she said in Ukrainian.
Maye Musk was one of the first celebrities who supported the campaign with the following words: “We are very impressed by how brave everyone is. And we will continue to support you however we can. You are trying to preserve your liberty. You are brave and you will win.”
Anne Ganguzza, a voice-over talent, coach, and demo producer, also recently took part in Respeacher’s campaign.
During the past year, Anne Ganguzza has been actively working with the Respeecher team.
“I’ve been so inspired by this team and their innovative technology”, says Ganguzza, “I can see how it effectively helps humanity’s ability to communicate with one another.”
The producer recorded a video message where she gave words of support for the brave Ukrainian people.
“We stand with you!”, says Ganguzza in Ukrainian and calls people to visit SupportUkraineNow.org and join her in supporting Ukraine.
At Respeecher, we aim to reduce communication barriers and believe that with the advances of new technologies, anything is possible. Voice cloning is evidence of that.
How does voice cloning work?
Millions of people have already seen what synthetic media is capable of and have experienced voice synthesizing while watching Hollywood movies. Now, we can empower English-speaking people to speak Ukrainian as if it was their native language. When working with influential individuals, Respeecher abides by the following process:
- A celebrity decides to participate in the initiative, and we agree on the arranged format.
- We teach our AI model how to ‘translate’ the celebrity’s voice into Ukrainian.
- We get the first samples and send them for approval.
- A celebrity records their message with words of support for Ukraine in English.
- We convert the message’s audio into the Ukrainian language and create a voiceover.
- We create a video involving the celebrity’s voice but in Ukrainian. We also add English subtitles and send the final video for approval.
When the celebrity receives the converted video, they distribute it on their social media and encourage people to speak out against the invasion and donate to Ukraine.
This article was initially published in OnlineContentReviews.
