Audible unveils plans to use AI voices to narrate audiobooks

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• ExtantHuman@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

  I can get that for free. There are apps that will read an ebook to you already. The whole point of paying the premium on audible is the superior reading/acting. Not put up with mispronounced words, weird cadence and an inability to handle acronyms

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• drmoose@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  This is clearly the future despite the outrage here.

  There are at least 389 living languages with over 1M speakers. That alone means it’s impossible to reach some people and they get left out. Most of these languages dont even have enough professional voice actors to cover the bandwidth.

  There are thousands of books released every year. That’s impossible to cover even in English alone.

  Its an objective net good to have more accessible audio books and the privileged people who do care about this stuff can very much afford to vote with their wallets for non-ai voices.

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• potoo22@programming.dev ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ 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.

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  • ArchmageAzor@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ 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.

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  • brrt@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ 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.

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    • Kornblumenratte@feddit.org ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Did you ever heard a single AI-narrated content that did not make you run away screaming?

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  • monkeyman512@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ 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.

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    • empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      That depends entirely on how profitable it is and how much they can get authors onboard.

      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.

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  • lemonskate@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    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.

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  • Uli@sopuli.xyz ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ 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.

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    • Kornblumenratte@feddit.org ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ 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.

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    • BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Oh. That’s an interesting use-case I hadn’t considered.

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    • taladar@sh.itjust.works ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ 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.

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  • echodot@feddit.uk ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ 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.

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    • futatorius@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ 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.

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  • catloaf@lemm.ee ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ 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.

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    • Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ 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.

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• ArchmageAzor@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

  Is voice AI trained on stolen data? I was under the impression that was LLMs.

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• Big_Boss_77@lemmynsfw.com ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  This is dumb as hell… if I wanted AI to read a book poorly to me, I’d just use screen reading accessibility features.

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  • Anamnesis@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Are there any good ones nowadays that don’t sound like a robot?

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    • venusaur@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Sure there are. ElevenLabs is one. You can probably tell they’re not human but they’re really decent.

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    • knightly@pawb.social ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      No

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• Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

  Beautiful, it works. Why not.

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• Ledericas@lemm.ee ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  youtube already does it.

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  • mlen@awful.systems ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    And it’s shit

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  • futatorius@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

    YouTube is crawling with it. It’s unlistenable shit. The prosody is badly implemented, pronunciation is infuriatingly bad, and a lot of the text that these TTS are reading appears to be AI-generated. Otherwise, already dire standards of literacy are getting worse at an accelerating rate.

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• DeceasedPassenger@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Meanwhile I unveil a plan to continue not giving a goddamn cent to J Bozo. Ever.

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• MeekerThanBeaker@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  It was bound to happen. I’m okay with ones that were never going to be turned into audiobooks to begin with… but they likely will use that as the norm for all books… I guess unless the author/publisher says not to.

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  • roofuskit@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Yeah currently contracts require the author’s or publisher’s consent. If anyone is a writer make sure to triple check your contracts for this shit.

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    • Womble@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      And unless your are Stephan King or the like exactly how are you going to get the publishing cartel (I think they re consolidated downs to 3-4 publishers now) to change their contract to not include this? Their response will almost certainly be either “that’s non-negotiable” or “ok then you get half as much money”.

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  • Dindonmasker@sh.itjust.works ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I’ve listened to a couple audiobooks where the author did the voice and i liked them. They know how phrases need to sound like better then an AI i would assume.

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• Godnroc@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Fucking gross. Maybe it’s the 250+ audiobooks I have influencing me, but the very best ones I’ve listened to transcend just turning words into sound. Sound effects, music, tone, emotion, accents, sarcasm, and god damn BLOOPERS all improve the experience beyond just hearing what is written down.

  I’m against it, fuck that literal noise.

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  • taladar@sh.itjust.works ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Sound effects, music […] improve the experience

    Actually hard disagreeing on that. I absolutely hate the audio drama versions of audio books and prefer the narrator only ones since they are much clearer and require a lot less focus to listen to and work in more contexts (background noise,…). Sound effects and music (while something is read, intro or outro style music is okay) distract from the actual content.

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    • echodot@feddit.uk ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Usually I agree with this with the exception of hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy where the audio drama is much better than the audiobook version.

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  • JoMiran@lemmy.ml ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    All I can think of is Jim Dale’s reading of the Harry Potter books. Fucking epic.

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    • echodot@feddit.uk ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      What, no way, they did not replace Steven Fry.

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    • Dindonmasker@sh.itjust.works ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Also Andy Serkis reading the lord of the rings. 11/10

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• riskable@programming.dev ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I just wrote a novel (finished first draft yesterday). There’s no way I can afford professional audiobook voice actors—especially for a hobby project.

  What I was planning on doing was handling the audiobook on my own—using an AI voice changer for all the different characters.

  That’s where I think AI voices can shine: If someone can act they can use a voice changer to handle more characters and introduce a great variety of different styles of speech while retaining the careful pauses and dramatic elements (e.g. a voice cracking during an emotional scene) that you’d get from regular voice acting.

  I’m not saying I will be able to pull that off but surely it will be better than just telling Amazon’s AI, “Hey, go read my book.”

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  • iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Would infinitely prefer no voice changer.

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    • partial_accumen@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Agreed. No AI voice changer please. Hopefully every one of us at one point in our lives has been read a story by someone else. Never once did the fact that all the different characters dialog was coming from one voice did that detract from the story or the immersion.

      I’ve listened to audiobooks recorded with extremely deep masculine voices (think James Earl Jones) and when the voice actor was doing the voice of a 5 year old girl, (in only a slightly higher whiny timbre which matched the character traits) it was never immersion breaking. However, AI voice would. If I want different actors for different characters I’ll listen to radio dramas.

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  • monkeyman512@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I think it would be a good idea to do a section of your work with and without AI modification. Then have people listen to both and give feedback. Good to find out if people like the modifications before you do a tone of work.

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  • ThisIsNotHim@sopuli.xyz ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    AI aside, different voices may be immersion breaking. I tend to avoid audiobooks with more than a single narrator.

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    • echodot@feddit.uk ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      They are redoing all of the discworld books like this, and personally I can’t stand it.

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    • taladar@sh.itjust.works ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Two narrators with one reading the male and one reading the female characters is usually okay but the full cast dramas are the worst.

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• FancyPantsFIRE@lemm.ee ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  For now at least I bet this’ll be pretty mediocre. I’m a big audiobook fan and voice actors have a massive impact on the quality of the finished product. A great voice actor can make a mediocre book fun and engaging, a bad one can make a great book unlistenable. The best do great voice differentiation. As an example I’ve really enjoyed Andrea Parsneau’s work in The Wandering Inn series.

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  • swelter_spark@reddthat.com ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Imagine not liking the voicing of a book, so you just pick a different one.

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    • FancyPantsFIRE@lemm.ee ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      You seem to be implying that’s ridiculous, but it is indeed exactly like that, though it’s not like I’m expecting every performance to be masterpiece.

      It’s also pretty subjective, for example folks either seem to love or hate R. C. Bray. My mother can’t stand the guy’s style, I think he’s okay.

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  • Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Patrick Tull’s Aubrey/Maturin series is fucking amazing.

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• selkiesidhe@lemm.ee ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I am okay with this only in cases where 1) the author approves, and 2) there is no audible version anyways.

  Some people prefer listening to their books instead of reading and that’s totally ok. Indie authors can’t always afford to hire a narrator but I’d still want the buyers to be able to listen to the book.

  Big question is, will the author get paid for the download or not…

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  • potoo22@programming.dev ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I wouldn’t support it even if the author couldn’t afford it otherwise. There’s no test to confirm that and knowing profit margines, all publishers will use AI for all their books.

    Yes, I’d want smaller authors to have people listen to their books, but without oversight, it’s going to ruin all audiobooks.

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• Kookie215@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  AI will write them and AI will read them to us.

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  • taladar@sh.itjust.works ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Let AI pay for them and AI listen to them too. That way we can pay for and listen to actually good ones.

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  • Ilixtze@lemm.ee ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    that’s gross.

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  • Photuris@lemmy.ml ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Stock up on old physical books

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    • Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      It is easier to keep the books than what’s written in them…

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• Breezy@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Why would they when you can just plug any epub into a program and use google tts. Ive listened to about a book a day for the past few years doing this and i love it. Yeah it took getting used too, but once you find an ai voice you like and figure out which words to auto replace to sound right its honestly better then an audiobook. Well at least to me it is, i could never stand when the reader would change their voice for different characters.

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  • Jack_Burton@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

    This is what I don’t get from a business standpoint. Why would anyone buy an AI read audiobook for $20 when they can get the exact same audio by buying the ebook for $0.99 and running it through AI?

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  • echodot@feddit.uk ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    My experience is these systems never get the intonation and stresses right. It drives me nuts and I can’t listen to it.

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    • Breezy@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Idk how much experience you have with this type of thing, but when I listen to my books i use my imagination to picture and hear things the way i want just like when i read a book normally. Ive read well over a 1000 books doing so, and that doesnt count rereads, and having the ability and willingness to use this method has drastically increased the amount i read but also my enjoyment doing so. The app i use also allows me to edit words and phrases throughput the book where i can correct how things are pronounced. Hell there’s a series that has this stupid catchphrase that i completely removed from all 20 books cause it was annoying. Im sure im only a single person that likes this method, but if i can find it enjoyable then when real ai gets put to work it’ll capture others.

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• tal@lemmy.today ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  AI voice synth is pretty solid, and I think that there are good uses for it — e.g. filling in for an aging actor/actress who can’t do a voice any more, video game mods, procedurally-generated speech, etc — but audiobooks don’t really play to those strengths. I’m a little skeptical that in 2025, it’s at the point where it’s a good drop-in replacement for audio books. What I’ve heard still doesn’t have emphasis on par with a human.

  I don’t know what it costs to have a human read an audiobook, but I can’t imagine that it’s that expensive; I doubt that there’s all that much editing involved.

  kagis

  reddit.com/…/whats_the_average_narrator_cost/

  So I produced my own audiobooks for my Nova Roma series so I know the exact numbers for you:

  $250 per finished hour for the narrator. Books ranged from about 200k words-270k words, which came out to 22 hours, 20 hours, and 25 hours.

  So books 1-3 cost me $5,500, $5,000, and $6,250. I’m contracted for two more books with my narrator, so I expect to spend another 5k-6k for each of those.

  So for a five book series, each one 200k+ words, the total cost out of pocket for me will be about $27,000 give or take to make the series into audiobooks.

  That’s actually lower than I expected, but point stands. Like, if a book sells at any kind of volume, it can’t be that hard to make that back.

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  • echodot@feddit.uk ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    The annotated text idea could work but I’m just sceptical of whether or not you would end up doing more work annotating all of the text, listening to it back, redoing certain bits and then editing the final result into a single file then you would if you just had a human do it.

    After all you’ve really automated is the reading of the text, which in the grand scheme of things doesn’t take all that long.

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• Ilixtze@lemm.ee ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I will Avoid Audio books with AI voices. I prefer the warmth of a human voice instead. A lot of my favorite Audiobooks are elevated by the interpretation of the professional actor.

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  • echodot@feddit.uk ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I wish I didn’t have to go with audible, I am acutely aware that I don’t really own the audiobooks and they could be taken off the platform at any time.

    I wish there was some other option but I don’t know of any other audiobook providers. They have the industry locked down.

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• Jimmycakes@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I only get the ones with a famous narrator or the author.

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  • tatann@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    AI can mimic those :/

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