Tyler Weitzman is the Co-Founder, Head of Synthetic Intelligence & President at Speechify, the #1 text-to-speech app on the earth, totaling over 100,000 5-star critiques. Weitzman is a graduate of Stanford College, the place he acquired a BS in arithmetic and a MS in Pc Science within the Synthetic Intelligence observe. He has been chosen by Inc. Journal as a High 50 Entrepreneur, and he has been featured in Enterprise Insider, TechCrunch, LifeHacker, CBS, amongst different publications. Weitzman’s Masters diploma analysis targeted on synthetic intelligence and text-to-speech, the place his remaining paper was titled: “CloneBot: Personalised Dialogue-Response Predictions.”
You started coding whenever you have been solely 9 years outdated, what initially attracted you to pc science?
I used to be fairly obsessed as a child with Dragon Ball Z, and I wished to be taught to animate myself. I discovered Adobe Flash and Photoshop and put my very own animations of Goku on a fan webpage I constructed. It was quickly after I started studying about programs and algorithms, and after I discovered I might really program for a dwelling that was fairly thrilling. I assumed it was only a passion like enjoying video games.
You then started constructing iphone apps whenever you have been solely 12 years outdated, what have been a few of these apps?
One app known as Black SMS that enables individuals to ship encrypted textual content messages to one another. One other app was known as Frontback that allows customers to take selfies and images of what’s in entrance of them at the very same time.
May you talk about your analysis at Stanford College and the way it was centered round pure language processing and speech synthesis?
My analysis spanned a number of makes use of for transformer networks, together with language era fashions for chat, part-of-speech tagging, punctuation prediction, and text-to-speech. Optimizing neural community inference for cellular CPUs was a main focus and that immediately translated to the offline voices out there on Speechify, which work even on airplane mode.
May you share the genesis story behind Speechify?
I’m blind in a single eye and my brother Cliff is dyslexic. We’ve used audiobooks and textual content to speech audio know-how for so long as we will bear in mind to get by way of college and after we have been younger for studying books like Harry Potter. As we acquired older and began to make use of extra know-how merchandise, we began to understand there was a possibility to construct higher textual content to speech apps on net and cellular with higher voices because of developments in AI and a greater person expertise. So we determined to go for it in Speechify.
What are a number of the totally different machine studying applied sciences which are used at Speechify?
We’ve adopted cutting-edge methods for superior generative architectures— transformers/conformers, large-scale pretraining, distributed coaching, gradient accumulation, auto-encoded latent areas, diffusion, adversarial networks, and language modeling. We make use of supporting methods for function processing surrounding phonemization, pitch, and emotion, to raised mannequin speech particularly.
What are a number of the challenges behind constructing a text-to-speech app?
One key problem is constructing top quality voices that sound like actual people fairly than robots. Our purpose is for individuals to not have the ability to inform the distinction between how our voices sound and the way people sound, in order that our customers are snug listening to content material on Speechify for lengthy intervals of time. A second problem is distributing our AI fashions to tens of millions of customers. It’s one factor to construct top quality AI voices and one other to ensure tens of millions of customers internationally really discover out about them and use them.
Speechify is the #1 app in its class within the app retailer, what do you attribute this success to?
We imagine we’ve constructed the most effective merchandise available in the market for individuals who wish to hearken to the studying they should devour – whether or not it’s college students with homework, professionals who’re studying for work, or leisure readers who simply wish to be entertained. We have now the most effective collection of voices, together with celebrities like Snoop Dogg, and the most effective person interface for individuals to simply add and entry the content material that they wish to devour. And our person expertise is seamless throughout the Speechify ecosystem – you can begin listening to an article in your pc after which simply zap it to maintain listening in your cellphone.
What are a number of the greatest use circumstances for this app?
Speechify’s generative AI solves actual issues for college students who wish to get by way of numerous homework quicker, actual individuals with Dyslexia and ADHD who’ve hassle studying, seniors with low imaginative and prescient, professionals who wish to learn extra and be extra productive, writers who wish to hearken to their work, auditory learners, and numerous others.
What’s your imaginative and prescient for the way forward for AI?
We would like AI – and particularly AI textual content to speech voices – to eradicate limitations to studying no matter your earnings stage, studying variations, geography, or language. We see AI as a software for social good to raise the standard of life people can dwell by way of bettering their training.
Thanks for the good interview, readers who want to be taught extra ought to go to Speechify.
