I tried, and failed, to get into audio books for years. Then I listened to Dungeon Crawler Carl narrated by Jeff Hayes and what an absolute delight it was. There’s no way I would’ve gotten even 10 minutes in if it was one of those soulless AI voices instead.
Comment on Audible unveils plans to use AI voices to narrate audiobooks
potoo22@programming.dev 3 weeks ago
No publisher is going to pay a professional to narrate their audiobooks when they can have AI do a shitty job for much less.
A shitty narrator can get me to hate a book I like. A great narrator can bring the characters to life, enhance the experience, and turn me from a listener to a fan. I’ve searched for books by narrators like Nick Podehl and Jeff Hayes and bought audiobooks I wouldn’t have otherwise.
lemonskate@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
tehn00bi@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Currently listening to the first book.
brrt@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
A shitty narrator can get me to hate a book I like.
And that is where I see potential for AI. There are quite a few books which I’d love to listen to but they are all narrated by a guy whose narration I can’t stand. AI would open the possibility to choose a voice and I might actually get to enjoy those books. It’s Amazon though so the ethical implications and quality concerns are something I’m worried about.
Kornblumenratte@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
Did you ever heard a single AI-narrated content that did not make you run away screaming?
ArchmageAzor@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
You think they’ll be narrating books with Tiktok TTS?
futatorius@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
Some use even worse, if YouTube content is any indication.
Kornblumenratte@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
To rephrase my question: where can I listen to an example of good AI spoken content?
Uli@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
I made some AI animated content that I never released because I don’t have the rights to the voices I was using. Even though I was blending several voices together to make them unrecognizable, it made me uncomfortable.
But in the process I learned the capabilities and limitations of AI voices. If you’re going purely from text to speech, it’s horrendous (as far as I experienced). Very robotic. It’s a bit better when melodic information is included (as in Suno) but still sounds like AI.
But when I recorded my own voice saying the lines and then converted it to another voice, it took all of the nuance of my line reads and converted it into the other voice.
So, would your opinion change if it turns out they’re going to use purchased voice rights to have a single narrator perform the whole book and then use AI to turn the narrators voice into a full voice cast?
I could see how it would allow lesser known books to have a better experience with a truly separate voice for each character, but I could also see how this might drive out lesser known/minority voice actors. Not advocating one way or another, just providing a piece of this conversation I think we should bear in mind.
Kornblumenratte@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
Using different voices to read different parts of a book turns an audiobook into a bad audio play, and arguably, a bad audio play is worse than a mediocre audio book.
What audible misses is, that, while reading is a technique that can be automated, narrating is an art. They can use AI to read books, they cannot use AI to narrate books.
Your example of AI use is a good example of this: AI can read your content. AI can enhance your capabilities. But only you can narrate it.
taladar@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
So, would your opinion change if it turns out they’re going to use purchased voice rights to have a single narrator perform the whole book and then use AI to turn the narrators voice into a full voice cast?
It would make me hate it even more because I already hate the existing full cast of humans audio dramas 99% of the time and actually prefer a single (or low number of) narrator approach.
Uli@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
Completely fair. I kind of like them. They did it for Redwall and I listen to those books on long drives sometimes. It works for me. Now I guess the advantage could be to have both versions and get to choose which you listen to–but even I’m skeptical that a corporation would have that much regard for the preferences of its consumers.
BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Oh. That’s an interesting use-case I hadn’t considered.
echodot@feddit.uk 3 weeks ago
Honestly audible are terribles. They are constantly doing things that annoy me, like they must have a team somewhere that spends its days going, how can we kill this golden goose?
They are going through and replacing audiobooks recorded in the 1980s with new ones which in theory should improve their quality but they’re getting rid of the classic sounds of those books.
futatorius@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
like they must have a team somewhere that spends its days going, how can we kill this golden goose?
I wouldn’t put it past Bezos to have an actual enshittification department.
48954246@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Nick Podehl is such an amazing narrator. The voices and performance are amazing.
I’ve been slowly getting through the Kel Kade books and the narration just makes it for me
Kusimulkku@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
I’m not sure why AI would automatically mean it’s doing a shitty job.
utopiah@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Because… the tool has no understanding of anything? It reads written words, yes, but no intention, no cultural context, no intonation. Unless everything is spelled out like a script, then it will not sound great, would it?
Kusimulkku@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
Someone can manually go through it and correct and edit it, as one would a regular, human made recording. It’s not rocket science exactly
SynopsisTantilize@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
These people just want to hate AI. Read through and see how many times they complain about copywrited material stolen, but claim piracy is the solution.
utopiah@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
If the “fix” for an AI implementation in a use case is, again, to manually correct it and find a less demanding audience then… yes, by definition it’s shitty.
The point isn’t that it’s infeasible, just that it will be low quality.
ArchmageAzor@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
The thing with this is that there won’t be shitty narrations any more. Hate it all you may, fact of the matter is that AI-powered voice generation is pretty good at what it does. So in the future you won’t have shitty narrations and great narrations. You’ll have decent narrations and great (human) narrations.
ExperiencedWinter@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
And teslas will have full self driving tomorrow and crypto currency will replace normal currency within one year! Always believe in the hype!
catloaf@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
For fiction, yeah, that’s true. For nonfiction, this could work pretty well.
I’m still generally opposed to it because it’s using the work of existing voice recording without compensation, though.
Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
nonfiction, this could work pretty well.
Only in rare cases.
If you have for example some explanations to a complex topic, then a super emotionless voice would still make you hate it and block you from learning it. Even the most dry and hard topics need some good and alive voice in explanations.
If it is just some reference list, where you need to search and hear small parts of it, then it could be Ok.
monkeyman512@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
That depends entirely on how profitable it is and how much they can get authors onboard.
I do agree that a good narrator delivers a performance that adds the work. James Marster will always be Harry Dresden in my head.
empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
A. Anything can be profitable when the cost to generation will be counted in singles of dollars instead of multiple thousands for a good narrator. They don’t even have to sell many to turn a profit too.
B. You think authors are going to have a choice? Lmfao. It’s the publishers that hold any real power and they will jump all over everyone’s IP with AI slop to make an extra three cents.
taladar@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
It might be time to finally change that, especially considering what a piss poor job they have been doing for decades at their own part of the production of media.
monkeyman512@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Your view seems to be hyper focused on the most pessimistic way of interpreting things. Are you doing OK? Seriously, I know how easy it is for everything going on to overwhelm you with negativity. How are you doing?
Womble@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Maybe this is a culture clash thing, but FWIW, to me your post comes across as incredibly condesending asking a total stranger about their mental helth and implying its bad like you were their close friend.
belluck@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
This isn’t the worst possible outcome. It’s the most realistic one. The worst one would be publishers just straight up replacing their writers with AI