I just listened to this AI generated audiobook and if it didn’t say it was AI, I’d have thought it was human-made. It has different voices, dramatization, sound effects… The last I’d heard about this tech was a post saying Stephen Fry’s voice was stolen and replicated by AI. But since then, nothing, even though it’s clearly advanced incredibly fast. You’d expect more buzz for something that went from detectable as AI to indistinguishable from humans so quickly. How is it that no one is talking about AI generated audiobooks and their rapid improvement? This seems like a huge deal to me.

  • Gamma@beehaw.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    14
    arrow-down
    5
    ·
    1 year ago

    Because it has the potential to become actively harmful to the audiobook industry

    • crank@beehaw.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      1 year ago

      I think it is true because if they get the tech right the market could be saturated and voice actors will be in lower demand.

      And the situation is already terrible for these workers. >90% of people buy and consume books via Audible which is owned by Amazon. As I’m sure you can guess there is lots of shady stuff going on. Such as (but not limited to) the “Audiblegate” campaign where workers discovered Amazon was engaging massive systemic wagetheft. As situation which is still ongoing to the best of my knowledge.

      Some further context about Audible:

    • GoldELox@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      why should i care about the audio book industry? The biggest player is Amazon, it doesn’t add value to the art form, its just another way to become informed, and the more people who have that ability the better.

      • Gamma@beehaw.org
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        Because they are people. There are other options, you don’t have to support Amazon.

      • Krauerking
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        Because they won’t lower prices even though they no longer have the cost of labor so people that made money from this industry are now out of work and can’t even afford that which they once created and then as people get poorer it limits the idea that people will just use it to become better informed and it becomes something rich twats get to enjoy without having to pay anyone but another rich person for closing the bubble and door to personal influence on the medium.

        Because the idea, that every job getting replaced is in any way going to help people other than just destitute those without assets is cruel ignorance of reality.

    • PlasterAnalyst@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      A lot of audiobook voices are harmful to the industry. Plenty of times I’ve listened to a book for ten minutes and said nevermind because the voice actor was terrible, making wet mouth sounds or their voice was just annoying or the audio quality was terrible.

      • i_stole_ur_taco@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        I love the multi book series where they hire a different narrator for certain books and they end up pronouncing names and places differently than the first narrator.