Why the FUCK would I pay actual human currency for what is essentially a text-to-speech kindle book? Why the FUCK would I ever want that?? THATS NOT THE POINT OF AN AUDIOBOOK.
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Audible is a garbage company. They were infamously awful to voice actors so, of course they’ve found a way to use AI and not have to pay or deal with human beings.
Big companies can't see past next year and the revenue. Even if AI voices weren't shit, give it one or two years and there will be a tool that turns every ebook into an AI audiobook at home, then Audible won't have any business anymore and no narrators.
It's to get people accustomed to hearing those weird AI voices so that when Sky Link destroys the Earth and the Terminators take over we won't be so scared of them.
I am wondering... content made by AI can't be copyrighted. So why do they want to sell it? If I'd be a person who doesn't have a grimace on her face whenever AI comes into conversation, I'd just generate my own audiobook.
Listened to book one of a fantasy series, the narrator voice fit so perfectly with the main character and I loved the story, so I ordered book 2 while still busy with book 1. Book 2 was voiced by AI, not at all near fitting with either the main character or story. I returned it immediately.
Ugh Ai audiobook? Why? Having a human voice is part of the experience! My son used audiobooks to help him with pronunciation and reading words. Ai will absolutely butcher words. (And don't think young students don't know what AI sounds like, they absolutely do!)
They want to replace us all with robots and AI. Humans are too messy. Also humans want to be paid and treated well. No AI voice could possibly replace a talented human voice actor. That’s the end of Audible for me, I’m afraid.
More over, if they are going to use AI to voice the books, they sure has hell better slash the cost of said books by a shit ton.
And I agree with you about amateur readings. I would listen to open domain books on LibriVox at work a lot. They weren't professionals by any leap of the imagination.
Unfortunately it will happen and it will succeed. YouTube is filled to the brim with AI narrators and images from Reddit posts and they're getting millions of views. Low effort, low cost, and even if it gets any reward it will be worth it to them. If it's a loss for them, then they'll stop. Or law.
Nah nah, I'm sure they'll totally grasp all the subtleties of tone and inflection required, and definitely won't sound utterly bananas when it tries to narrate anything with even a hint of human emotion
It's like when inuse text to speech on news articles sometimes and when the ai doesn't use a word often it has a twerking breakdown and just does separate syllables or proper place names.
Cost- a reek- ah
There are narrators, and there are human narrators. I’ve narrated a dozen books and as I feel the characters and emotion in the story my voice changes.
Assuming that they put effort into the authoring of it, you can add more emotion and inflection than a lot of the audio books have. It far surpasses a random doing text to speech.
I haven’t been by it in a while, but Apple butchered a road called Sugarloaf (no h sound in sugar) many years ago. That’s an easy one. Good luck on all the intricacies of every language.
Zero customers want this. Yeah, the company will save money on human narrators, but how many people would willingly pay for a text to speech book? Hope they crash and burn
Maybe one day having an AI reading books won't be the worst thing, but we're quite far from that. At the very least it's nothing worth paying for in its current state. (Though tbh I think a service like that shouldn't cost anything but that's a whole other can of worms.)
People are already telling stories while having to get a second job just to create stuff while AI steals everything they make so a billionaire can look at investors happily
Magical thinking. The guys who have hoarded all the wealth in the world are not suddenly going to share it after AI destroys all of our jobs. UBI is a lie to lure people into complicity in their own subjugation.
https://Libro.fm has been everything to me. Audible started destroying the joy of audiobooks so long ago and clearly staying on brand with that by pulling this nonsense.
As a recently blind person, there is nothing more annoying than a book delivered in AI speech.
It’s tough enough to absorb, especially without the human nuances adding to comprehension.
I’ve switched to Libro, while keeping my Audible account open (no more purchases) to retain access to the 650+ books I have on the system (I started with Audible before Bezos bought it).
If I could find a way to download all the books I would.
Amazon neither understand nor care what they’re selling.
Judging by AI narrated YouTube videos I've watched, this is asinine.Constant mispronunciations, staccato cadence changing the meaning of the text, etc.
Marathon Man was impossible for me to listen to when the human narrator kept saying MAC-a-dam instead of ma-CA-dam. Came out of my skin every time.
Perhaps good for some, but I can't think of a better way to make me avoid them. Yikes. hours and hours of dead soulless mis-pronouncing of words and weird pauses.
A guy asks gAI to give him an idea for a book, then gives it to another gAI to write a book based on that idea, then gives it to another gAI to make an audiobook, then sells both on Amazon.
... Fuck that, if they implement this inwill never spend a cent there again. I will take my books I already have and go somewhere else. FUCK. THAT. NOISE.
If they do this, I won’t use Audible. Pretty simple, really. For fucks sake, Siri can’t even say ‘toward’. And do we really want to put more humans out of work?
I’m mostly just surprised we haven’t seen os vendors incorporate modern text to speech into their operating systems to read any text. Kinda like the elevenlabs reader, but at the zoos level.
I don't care how good it gets. It's a horrible, exploitative technology, and it should be killed with fire. The better it gets, the worse the insult to life and the creativity it imitates.
Looks like every single company is trying to pull this move to not pay people, so they can offer a proper quality service. It's so stupid, nonsensical! I really hope they can't success in this.
At the expense of product quality, tarnishing their brand and business. Many may forget, lots won't 😂😂. Squandering the work of so many voice actors is shooting themselves in the foot. Then they'll cry in a public statement, saying it was a mistake. "Please keep giving us money, we're good".It's sad
This app is great for downloading your library. I've been using it for awhile because I prefer to listen in a different app than the Audible one. https://github.com/rmcrackan/Libation
For Some Books that means AI narration or no narration at all and for some people that means AI Audiobook or no Audiobook. For example there are practically no German language Audiobooks of Asimovs works.
The only reason I care about this, excluding the fact that this is just to maximize profits for themselves (go figure), is that AI word pronunciation blows chunks so it's going to get to a word in a series like WH40K that is from old English or some old tech lexicon and just absolutely fuck it up
Did you ever seen Andy Serkis read an inner monologue between Gollum/Smeagol? That´s not just reading, it´s playing, it´s a piece of art. No sh...ty AI can do this!
It's insane. They are an audiobook service. This would be like a service you pay for to deliver milk just gave you water with white paint in it. It looks like what you paid for but it isn't edible or actually what you paid for
I would rather listen to someone doing an amateur reading on YouTube. I would rather listen to a messily recorded podfic. I would rather listen to fucking Ed Kemper read me an entire library than listen to Ai narration for five FUCKING seconds.
Oh they are gonna get in huuuuuge legal trouble for this. Audio usage rights are sold separately from the written word rights, so they’re gonna have a lot of people chasing after them if they try to push this. It’s not the first time they’ve tried this.
That's the thing though, I doubt they will reduce the price for consumers. They want the same amount of revenue (or higher) for each unit as before, they just don't want to pay any voice actors.
I just finished a second listen through of the fantastic "Between Two Fires" audiobook and the way the narrator pitched his voice and changed his inflection between characters was amazing. Ai couldn't even begin to understand that subtlety.
I used to do audio editing for an online education company that shifted to all computer-generated text-to-voice in 2015 or so and it was a nightmare. The courses I got to try it on had a lot of Maori place names and it was hell trying to get the pronounciation correct. We were laid off soon after.
For awhile I did work on a Chinese educational program that taught kids English and sometimes the narrator voices were clearly text to speech and it was grating. I don't even think it was final audio but even as a scratch track it was insufferable.
I loved editing real voices. Sometimes they'd leave messages or jokes for us in the raw recordings because a couple of the engineers in the booth with the talent were old friends of my husband's, who also worked for the same company.
Record profits are literally such a disgusting thing to endlessly aim for. Just god forbid they just create a product and maintain it without constantly changing it to suck out more money.
Amazon Tea understands this. Ugh its guillotine time
I keep thinking of when my mom was in the last year of her life, and one of the only things I found comforting was the Watership Down (Ralph Cosham version) audiobook. I listened to it on repeat for months. A human voice can be very powerful. Just knowing a real person is speaking to you.
Until I got married I read to my mom at night every Sunday. I had been reading to her since I was a little kid. I liked too do the voices of characters and hear the sound of words. On a road trip I read her THE PRAYER OF OWEN MEANY while she drove. It was our best vacation together
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Replacing audiobooks? Hell no.
I have no interest in an ai voice, none whatsoever
Finally! Corroboration!
See also
PBS report: Ai Datacenter Damage
https://youtu.be/-sNKfRq1oKg?si=oML4FkHBJL7w6U6
I hate reading my own stuff but I guess.
goldenaudiobook .com
fantasyaudiobook .com
bigaudiobooks .club
All free, no account required, fuck Audible.
It's working well, so far.
it’s an affront to nature and an affront to all that is good and beautiful.
F amazon too.
And I agree with you about amateur readings. I would listen to open domain books on LibriVox at work a lot. They weren't professionals by any leap of the imagination.
But I have a sneaking suspicion they won't be. At least before the lawsuits start.
Cost- a reek- ah
How is anyone going to get or keep a job when it is being lost to ai slop?
I'm all for being upset that voice actors are being removed from the process, but I think you are far far off on the quality not being acceptable.
There are literally text to speech pdf readers that do that job for £5.
If that’s the case I’ll just download PDFs and get the pdf reader to do it.
I'm a voice over artist and this is frustrating.
Regardless, when you read the comments on Audible, they prefer actual narrators.
Audible will lose business this way!
Last time I went by that area, directional narration still called it Alex...
BOVEEEEENA
It’s tough enough to absorb, especially without the human nuances adding to comprehension.
If I could find a way to download all the books I would.
Amazon neither understand nor care what they’re selling.
Marathon Man was impossible for me to listen to when the human narrator kept saying MAC-a-dam instead of ma-CA-dam. Came out of my skin every time.
YouTube is horrible now. I won't watch AI videos.
There are some readers I search out like authors.
I will continue to pay to listen to the people who bring me a story.
Cause kindle, say it with me, already does this.
Just not as, let's call it naturally😮💨
...I need to look into getting a DL of my audible library if that's possible and cancelling I guess.
Calm down. It’s not that deep
Amazon Tea understands this. Ugh its guillotine time