[continued from previous message]

The solution, though, is pretty simple and should satisfy everyone: let

the caller choose the accent they want to hear right at the start of the
call. I mean, maybe you'd love to hear the IRS with a Jamaican accent, just
to keep your mood up? Or Swedish chef?

Even better, let the caller decide how the help desk hears his or her own

voice, like a sexy French accent or irate Irish, depending on the circumstances.

Also, letting white people change their voice to not sound so white could

also be a big deal going forward.

... but, particularly in regard to the Metaverse, this leads nicely into the area that I *really* wanted to get into (and that a request to examine got
me started on all of this), which is psychological factors (and dangers) of
the Metaverse. Of which the "echo chamber" is definitely one.

I suspect that there are significantly more dangers involved in this
offering than are immediately apparent. This service, or product, or
whatever we want to call it (and we should probably be careful to call it by family friendly, or at least printable, names), is an example of the echo chamber effect that social media seems to be concentrating on in very many cases. The echo chamber is, of course, the ability to talk only to those
who agree with you and whom you agree with. This has significant dangers in
the existing social media world, and this can only be exacerbated as the Metaverse comes into reality. We talk to people whom we think agree with us
on a variety of issues, and we assume that they are like us in appearance, social status, economic status, and a number of other areas as well.
(However, as the article points out, this type of deception is being done anyway, even without technology, by those who train themselves to speak with American accents. See Judi Dench's character's new job in "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.") There are two dangers inherent in this practice that
cannot be easily addressed: people who assume, supported by the fact that everyone they talk to agrees with them, that *everyone* agrees with them;
and the fact that people will assume that people who agree with them on one topic will agree with them on other topics, and therefore create problems
and offend the people that they are talking to by raising offensive ideas
that the other person *doesn't* agree with. (There are, of course, many
more specific examples that can be imagined: these two only illustrate the
two major sides of the echo chamber coin.)

The company and investors, of course, present the idea in the most laudable terms: reducing bias. But, as the article points out, accents don't *cause* bias, they just trigger it. This is like treating the symptom, and not the underlying disease. (Recently I had exercise induced vasculitis. The
doctor I saw was very concerned that I *not* attempt to get steroid cream to apply to it, which would possibly reduce irritation and itching, but would weaken the tissues, and possibly cause more serious problems.)

In terms of the putative service call, a problem is that some white
supremacist will think that he's talking to a fellow racist and say, in the course of the conversation, "I'm glad I'm not talking to one of those [offensive racial epithetic which just happens to apply to the person he's actually talking to]. Two immediately obvious problem possibilities arise.
The first is, why should your staff be subject to such offensive comments?
The second is that your service people may be offended enough to respond in kind to the person making offensive comments (probably to the total surprise
of the racist who made the comments), and therefore generating bad will and
bad reputation for your company.

(In terms of this service as a business offering, I also suspect that many
more people would be offended by the generated "white" voice than by
accents. It will probably be quite a while before the service can operate
with the speed, and the timbre, necessary to make it sound truly human.
Until then, callers who don't know the service is being used will hear
delays, and a fairly flat delivery, and assume they are talking to some kind
of voice response system. The "uncanny valley" effect will probably kick
in, and people will be annoyed at talking to, as they think, a robot.)

But the jokes also point out some dangers. If you, and the person you are talking to, are friends, know about the technology, and know that it is
being used, then, yes, it's fun. In any other situation, then, like I said
in the original posting, it creates an opportunity for misrepresentation,
and therefore can *cause* misunderstandings, far from eliminating them. I recently had to deal with a communications problem with multiple parties,
where a number of those involved had become offended. It was, of course, a situation requiring delicate negotiations. I would *not* want Irish imprecations added to any of my communications with any of the parties involved. Nor would I want any musical lilt added to my delivery, lest
those causing the problems see it as less serious than it was.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2022 16:21:48 -0400
From: Gabe Goldberg <gabe@gabegold.com>
Subject: Re: Startup uses AI to transform call center workers' accents into
"white voice" (RISKS-33.41)

Article: Have you seen the 2018 movie Sorry to Bother You? It's about a
young black man who gets a job at a call center and has trouble making sales until he adopts a "white voice."

A new company called Sanas seems to have based its business plan on the
movie. It has developed software that converts call center workers' accents into "standard American English." If you listen to Sanas' demo, it sounds remarkably like the white voice in Sorry to Bother You.

https://boingboing.net/2022/08/23/startup-uses-ai-to-transform-call-center-workers-accents-into-white-voice.html

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2022 10:08:26 -0700
From: Steve Bacher <sebmb1@verizon.net>
Subject: Re: A Janet Jackson Song Could Crash Windows XP Laptops
(RISKS-33.41)

Not only that, but if you're listening to your laptop audio through
headphones or earbuds, presumably that wouldn't be audible enough to cause
the crash. Suppressing frequencies from the audio output would punish those users for no practical reason.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2022 18:15:36 -0400
From: Gabe Goldberg <gabe@gabegold.com>
Subject: Re: Scans of Students' Homes During Tests Are Deemed
Unconstitutional (RISKS-33.41)

An Ohio judge ruled that such surveillance to prevent cheating could form a slippery slope to more illegal searches.

https://www.wired.com/story/remote-testing-student-room-scans-privacy

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2020 11:11:11 -0800
From: RISKS-request@csl.sri.com
Subject: Abridged info on RISKS (comp.risks)

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