Lionel Messi speaking English in a press conference is something that fans are unlikely to ever hear in real life. AI (artificial intelligence) has given us a glimpse to what it would look like if the Argentine superstar did speak English fluently.
Argentinian AI creator Javi Fernandez used AI to generate Messi speaking English during one of his recent press conferences.
Messi speaking English AI press conference
Artificial intelligence has Messi speaking English pic.twitter.com/zOoUpvUrd5
— ESPN FC (@ESPNFC) September 13, 2023
How AI Voice is done
In the last year AI voices have taken off. If you’ve been on TikTok at all then you might have seen clips of AI voices being used to have presidents like Joe Biden, Donald Trump and Barack Obama playing video games together.
Other instances of AI voice entertainment include South Park’s Eric Cartman singing songs. AI audio of him singing “Bring Me To Life” by Evanescence has garnered millions upon millions of views.
AI voices like the one used for the Messi speaking English clip are generated through speech pattern analysis of real-life clips of celebrities, actors, characters or athletes speaking. The more real-life clips of that person speaking available provides more examples for the AI to get the tone, cadence and accent just right. The source that Fernandez used was a website called heygen.
From there a person can type in what they want that person to say and can generate an audio recording of that person speaking.
There’s also AI available to try and get the person’s lips to match what is being said. This was used in the Messi clip as a look at his mouth reveals it moves a little unnatural.
Fernandez's video is a cool example to see what Messi would sound like speaking English. It’s unlikely he’ll ever need to in Miami as a majority of people there can already speak Spanish. Messi said in an interview a few years ago that he can understand English but can’t speak it.
