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Audible unveils plans to use AI voices to narrate audiobooks
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 13 May 2025
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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.
Did you ever heard a single AI-narrated content that did not make you run away screaming?
You think they'll be narrating books with Tiktok TTS?
To rephrase my question: where can I listen to an example of good AI spoken content?
First thing that comes to my mind would be Dougdoug. He's a streamer who messes around with AI a fair bit for funny content, including using AI-generated voices at times.
https://youtu.be/2pbhnyrpHmY?t=7h19m42s
Hm. I wasn't able to listen to all 9:53:57, but in the samples I watched I heard a voice resembling the classical computer voice of Science Fiction movies of the 70s. Better than most YouTube AI generated audio content, but good enough to narrate audio books? Well, we'll accustom to anything, I guess.
I don't know if my timestamp went through, but the part I linked to was at 7h/19m/42s. That's the relevant part, not necessarily the entire video. That's a showcase of good AI voices.
My browser eats timestamps, til. And yes, that is impressive.
Thanks, I'll listen into it.
Some use even worse, if YouTube content is any indication.
But you think Audible would use those to narrate books?
I think an Amazon owned company would actually default to Alexa, who's voice is equally terrible. Why pay more to develop a better voice?