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Identifying Authentic Speakers from Voice Conversion-Generated Utterances


Core Concepts
This paper explores the feasibility of identifying authentic source speakers from voice conversion-generated utterances, which pose potential risks for deception and privacy violations.
Abstract

The paper presents a system for authentic speaker recognition from converted voices, which consists of two main components: voice conversion and speaker recognition.

Voice Conversion:

  • Uses an encoder-decoder model to convert source speaker utterances to target speaker voices without parallel data.
  • The encoder learns phonetic information from source speakers and extracts acoustic features from target speakers, while the decoder combines this information to reconstruct the converted utterances.

Authentic Speaker Recognition:

  • Employs a hierarchical VLAD (Vector of Locally Aggregated Descriptors) architecture within a ResNet backbone to effectively learn subtle source speaker features from the converted voices.
  • The hierarchical structure allows the model to aggregate information from different layers, while VLAD helps mitigate the interference from target speaker information.
  • Experiments on the VCTK corpus show that the proposed hierarchical VLAD model outperforms several baseline methods in recognizing authentic source speakers from converted voices.
  • The results indicate that while voice conversion can significantly alter the acoustic characteristics of the source speaker, certain source speaker information persists and can be leveraged for authentic speaker identification.
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Stats
The CSTR VCTK corpus was used, which contains speech data from 110 English speakers. 100 utterances were randomly selected from each speaker as source utterances, and their corresponding target utterances were randomly selected from other speakers. This resulted in 10,800 converted utterances in total.
Quotes
"Voice conversion can pose potential social issues when manipulated voices are employed for deceptive purposes." "Although there have been some conversion algorithms, such as encoder-decoder models and GAN based models, these methods still can not completely eliminate speaker-dependent features."

Key Insights Distilled From

by Qiang Huang at arxiv.org 05-02-2024

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2405.00248.pdf
Who is Authentic Speaker

Deeper Inquiries

How can the proposed authentic speaker recognition system be further improved to handle more sophisticated voice conversion techniques that aim to completely remove source speaker information?

To enhance the proposed authentic speaker recognition system's capability to handle advanced voice conversion techniques that aim to eliminate source speaker information entirely, several strategies can be implemented: Incorporating Disentanglement Techniques: Introducing disentanglement methods in the voice conversion process can help separate speaker-related features from other acoustic characteristics. By disentangling the speaker identity information from the converted voices, the recognition system can focus solely on authenticating the source speaker based on unique vocal traits. Utilizing Adversarial Training: Implementing adversarial training mechanisms can help the system become more robust against voice conversion techniques that attempt to mask the source speaker's identity. Adversarial networks can be used to generate adversarial examples that challenge the recognition system, thereby improving its ability to discern authentic speakers from converted voices. Integrating Multi-Modal Features: Incorporating multi-modal features, such as facial expressions or linguistic patterns, along with audio data can provide additional cues for authentic speaker recognition. By leveraging multiple modalities, the system can cross-validate speaker identities more effectively, even in scenarios where source speaker information has been heavily altered. Exploring Attention Mechanisms: Implementing attention mechanisms in the recognition system can help focus on specific regions of the audio signal that contain crucial speaker-related information. By attending to relevant acoustic features, the system can better identify authentic speakers despite sophisticated voice conversion techniques.

How might the proposed approach be adapted to work with real-world scenarios where the source and target speakers are not randomly paired, but instead have specific relationships or contexts?

Adapting the proposed approach to real-world scenarios where source and target speakers have specific relationships or contexts involves the following considerations: Contextual Embeddings: Incorporating contextual embeddings that capture the relationship between source and target speakers can enhance the recognition system's performance. By encoding contextual information, such as familial ties, professional affiliations, or social connections, the system can leverage these relationships to improve speaker authentication. Domain Adaptation Techniques: Employing domain adaptation techniques can help the system generalize across different speaker relationships and contexts. By fine-tuning the recognition model on diverse datasets that reflect various speaker relationships, the system can adapt to specific contexts and relationships encountered in real-world scenarios. Semantic Similarity Measures: Introducing semantic similarity measures that quantify the closeness of relationships between source and target speakers can aid in authentic speaker recognition. By evaluating the semantic proximity between speakers based on shared attributes or interactions, the system can make more informed decisions about speaker authenticity. Dynamic Contextual Modeling: Implementing dynamic contextual modeling techniques that adjust the recognition process based on the specific relationship or context between source and target speakers can enhance system adaptability. By dynamically updating contextual information during recognition, the system can tailor its authentication criteria to the unique characteristics of each speaker relationship.

What other applications beyond deception detection could benefit from the ability to identify authentic speakers from converted voices?

The ability to identify authentic speakers from converted voices has implications beyond deception detection and can benefit various applications, including: Forensic Investigations: In forensic investigations, authentic speaker recognition from converted voices can help verify the authenticity of audio evidence and determine the true identity of speakers involved in criminal activities. This can aid law enforcement agencies in solving cases and ensuring justice. Personalized User Authentication: Implementing authentic speaker recognition in personalized user authentication systems can enhance security measures in sensitive environments. By verifying users based on their unique vocal characteristics, access to confidential information or restricted areas can be tightly controlled. Medical Diagnosis and Treatment: In the healthcare sector, authentic speaker recognition can be utilized for patient identification and monitoring in medical settings. By authenticating healthcare providers based on their voices, patient safety can be ensured, and accurate medical records can be maintained. Customer Service and Call Centers: Authentic speaker recognition can improve customer service interactions by enabling businesses to authenticate customers based on their voices. This can streamline the verification process, enhance security in call centers, and personalize customer experiences. Educational Assessment: In educational settings, authentic speaker recognition can be used for student assessment and evaluation. By verifying students' identities during oral exams or assessments, academic integrity can be maintained, and fair evaluations can be conducted. By leveraging authentic speaker recognition beyond deception detection, these applications can benefit from enhanced security, personalized interactions, and improved efficiency in various domains.
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