Amazon testing computer generated audio books

[Faith]

Amazon has a new beta program. We will have to be very sure to listen to samples before buying.

https://www.kdpcommunity.com/s/articl...

[Robin P]

This is the kind of thing the actors' strike was about, I wonder if anything in the negotiation included voice acting.

[Joy D]

It's hard to believe that an automated voice can do justice to an audiobook. Sure, it can simulate words, but what about inflections, accents, changes in character, pronunciations, and nuances in the text? Judging from the voice of my GPS, the technology just isn't there. This may be useful from a cost perspective, as in it will cost less for authors to "hire" a computer voice, but I imagine it will be a bust from a quality of performance perspective.

[Scott S.]

Joy D wrote: "It's hard to believe that an automated voice can do justice to an audiobook. Sure, it can simulate words, but what about inflections, accents, changes in character, pronunciations, and nuances in t..."

Agreed.

[Jeanie]

I already listen to some Kindle books using Alexa as the reader--only for those books without an audiobook--and it's not a bad experience. It even produces an "angry" tone when the text indicates that... sometimes. Pronunciation is a problem and there is no character voice differentiation, but the Amazon folks appear to be working on that. In the end, there is no substitute for a professional narrator, but some people will be suckered in I expect because they don't know the difference.

[Philip]

AI via several services provides some examples. All require additional work (using code) to get emphasis, emotion and character traits. All these things are what a narrator/actor brings as does the reader when imagining the character/prose.

AI is not there yet but some of those systems provide a better voice than other text to speech systems.

[Becky]

I am pretty particular about audiobook readers, and I can't see myself ever opting for an AI-read audiobook... but I'm still in favor of this for accessibility reasons. People with visual or reading disabilities will have a greater access to books with this option, even if it's a less-than-perfect audiobook.

I would love for professionally read audiobooks to be more widely available at lower cost, but Simon Vance can't read every book in the world just because I want him to. ;)

[D]

Becky wrote: "I would love for professionally read audiobooks to be more widely available at lower cost, but Simon Vance can't read every book in the world just because I want him to. ;)"

Right!?

Tim Gerard Reynolds comes to mind too. I find that I have a leaning towards accents from female/male voices when listening to books. I listened to an AI generated book the other day. Hated it. It was a DNF.

I cuss like a sailor, so the more the merrier for books like that too. It's a BSh*t listen when cuss words are made up to imply cussing. Totally knocks me out of the story. Do AI's cuss? ;)

[Robin P]

There could be a role for AI in recording textbooks and other material for students with vision issues. Such students have for years been having their computers "read" texts to them. But literature is a different thing.