I spent 20 minutes counting everything I hate about ChatGPT’s new voice — and accidentally discovered why it works

I don’t like ChatGPT’s latest voice model .

If you don’t use voice to interact with ChatGPT, this might seem like a strange thing to get worked up about, so let me explain.

Until recently, its voices have all sounded fairly advanced .

But there was still something unmistakably AI-y about them.

At times, they sounded smooth and even expressive, but also stunted and, well, robotic.

The latest voice update attempts to smooth away the rest of those more robotic edges.

Which means that ChatGPT now pauses, hesitates, changes intonation and adds lots of little noises humans make without even thinking about it.

There are lots of “umms” and “hmms”.

There are plenty of drawn out “yeeeahs”, as well as enthusiastic “ooohs”.

Sometimes it sounds like it’s taking a breath or sighing.

Sometimes it pauses halfway through a thought.

And often its voice rises at the end of a sentence.

In other words, it’s been changed to sound more human and I find it incredibly annoying.

When I first tried it, I thought it was broken.