Talking books
Regarding the theory of elite overproduction, there probably aren’t many of us who suspect societal upheaval and revolution will arise from the hungry masses of unemployed audiobook narrators, or from incidental music composers. But their livelihoods may soon be at stake nonetheless. Spare a thought, if you will.
Apple is now rolling out AI narrators for books in its Apple Books app. The combination of artificial intelligence and expert training has resulted in some voices that sound quite human, that are pretty persuasive facsimiles, although there are some flaws. The samples provided here in their marketing pitch to authors are a long way away from some computer-narrated readers on YouTube, for instance, such as at this link—a bit of a long video, but it demonstrates some of the previous limitations, such as strange voice quality, odd intonation, and inappropriate pauses.
But when the revolution comes to the musicians? Is that when the time has come to fortify the home against marauders?
Well. Maybe it’s not time to man the barricades just yet. The vocal isn’t too bad, even if it sings gibberish.
Another company that’s been at this for a few years is AIVA, and here is a recent sample of their output.
I have to say, this isn’t bad if you were a content creator who needed incidental music. They sell their AI and services as monthly subscriptions, starting with free plans. Their YouTube home page includes tutorials for how to use their software.
Perhaps the AI itself will give narrators and composers a lot of extra work to do, such as turning book narrations into song. Along the way, it promises to make features like narration available to authors with lower sales quantities, and background music available to video and podcast creators who could never afford the services of professional musicians and composers.
So the revolution should at least enjoy appropriate emotional accompaniment.
Happy Pizza Day everyone!
Eh, I don't like being read to ( though as a child I did, until I could read it myself, and my dad used to act them out, so that was fun...) by real people or mechanical or voice generated ones...I just absorb it better and get more out of it by doing it myself, it is a process, and I often flip backwards to re read things for various reasons. On things like Siri etc...creeps me out to be honest. I find even if someone tries to read me something relatively short that is non book related I get annoyed and ask them to just give me the paper...lol...I guess I need to experience it to get it?
Not a fan o mechanical music for the most part either...
I listened to both links, and I kind of liked the second one. However, this is very similar to what a lot of humans have been producing for awhile now using various electronic music input. They always go for that heavy percussion, too.
I also read Scott Lincicome’s piece on AI, and I tend to go with his thoughts. Of course, there’s no way of actually knowing what the future holds, but I feel pretty optimistic.
I’m also not too concerned with humans being totally replaced. We still need that connection, and I don’t think it’s something anyone is really willing to give up, despite all the science fiction that tells us otherwise.