The Download: combating audio deepfakes, and AI in the classroom

July 15, 2025
This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. AI text-to-speech programs could one day “unlearn” how to imitate certain people The news: A new technique known as “machine unlearning” could be used to teach AI models to forget specific voices. How…

AI text-to-speech programs could “unlearn” how to imitate certain people

July 15, 2025
A technique known as “machine unlearning” could teach AI models to forget specific voices—an important step in stopping the rise of audio deepfakes, where someone’s voice is copied to carry out fraud or scams. Recent advances in artificial intelligence have revolutionized the quality of text-to-speech technology so that people can convincingly re-create a piece of…