Now You Can Chat With ChatGPT With Your Voice
We are all used to the ChatGPT protocol by now. You upload it, write your request, and the AI reacts accordingly – accuracy is not guaranteed . While chatting with ChatGPT is surprisingly human-like, at the end of the day you’re just texting. A chatbot is not at the point where you can have a verbal conversation, either in person or over the phone. At least not without a little outside help.
To turn ChatGPT into a conversation partner, enlist the help of TalkBerry , a new Chrome extension from developer Userly Labs. TalkBerry, according to the developer’s Twitter account , seems to have started out as a language learning tool powered by artificial intelligence. But while the TalkBerry Chrome extension doesn’t put much emphasis on language learning, it lets you speak to ChatGPT with your voice, and it responds in kind.
TalkBerry is easy enough to set up: install the extension from the Chrome Web Store, then go to the ChatGPT web app . Here you will notice a new green microphone button. You can click on it or press the space bar to activate the microphone, although you need to give the extension permission to use the microphone the first time. After that, just start talking. You can end your part of the chat by pressing Enter and cancel it completely by pressing Escape.
ChatGPT will process your request and respond as usual. However, once he is done, he will read the results aloud. You can also customize ChatGPT’s voice using the control bar next to the green microphone button: you can change the language (currently 13 options), speed and voice (currently I count 29 English options). If you like, you can force ChatGPT to respond in a different language, which makes the TalkBerry extension look a bit like the language-learning app originally created by its developers. It works well and is easy to set up, so thanks to the developer.
But TalkBerry is more than a neat gimmick and one step closer to what was predicted in the 2013 movie Her . By providing ChatGPT with voice interactivity, it opens up a chatbot for visually impaired users. There is no need for workarounds here: a simple press of a button allows you to speak to ChatGPT, and another press will soon initiate a response voice result. Tools like ChatGPT should be available to as many people as possible. I’m sure the future will bring more accessible AI, just like accessibility features have evolved in today’s technology. But until then, tools like TalkBerry allow more people to experience ChatGPT and growing consumer AI:
However, there is a privacy angle to consider here. TalkBerry claims to have access to “User Activity,” a vague idea that, according to Chrome, could mean anything from network monitoring to logging keystrokes. The developer claims that your data is not used outside of the main functionality of the extension, will not be sold to third parties “outside of approved use cases”, and is not used to determine creditworthiness (not that it has ever crossed my mind). ). Also, if you go deeper into its settings, it will only have access to the ChatGPT web app, so it won’t be able to interact with your activity on other apps and other sites.
I’ll take an optimistic approach and assume that “user activity” is simply the data needed to make TalkBerry work and turn your spoken words into a ChatGPT prompt. However, you can always turn TalkBerry off when you’re not using it, just in case.