Kim Kwan-seok was a popular and influential South Korean folk rock singer, who unfortunately passed away at the young age of 31 in 1996. Now with Voice AI technology, SBS (Seoul Broadcasting System) have brought his voice back to life.
The National Broadcaster, SBS used Artificial Intelligence to bring back Kim’s voice for a TV program titled; “Competition of the Century: AI VS Human” where the late singer’s voice is used to perform ‘I miss you’, a song released in 2002 by famous South Korean performer Kim Bum-soo.
This is not the first time this technology has been used in South Korea. On New Years Eve an AI version of popular singer Shin Hae-chul who passed away in 2014 performed alongside Korean mega-stars BTS.
The Company behind this feat, Supertone – are a South Korean startup founded in 2020 that provides AI audio solutions for content creators. Their AI Technology, named ‘Singing Voice Synthesis’ – or SVS for short, learned 20 songs of Kim’s, as well as a training tool that used 700 Korean songs to improve accuracy. Allowing the AI system to mimic a new song in Kim’s own style.
“It’s about singing a song with emotions. And each note should be connected naturally, hence emotions can be delivered, which is the key point of the technology. The developers trained the AI to exactly imitate human’s vocal organs,” – said Nam Sang-moon, chief producer.