Apple quietly launches a selection of audiobooks read by an AI robot

You can’t beat settling in for a gripping audiobook narrated by the likes of Stephen Fry, George Guidall or Juliet Stevenson.

But in the future, will humans still be the most popular storytellers or will robots end up dominating the booming industry?

Well Apple clearly thinks there’s a market for the latter as it has quietly launched a catalogue of books that are narrated by artificial intelligence. 

This new feature is just the start of what will be a fierce battle with the likes of Amazon and Spotify for an industry that insiders think could be worth more than $35 billion (£29 billion) by 2030.

What’s clear from the robotic, artificial quality of Apple’s AI voices is that they won’t be replacing the warm, dulcet tones of Fry any time soon, but as the technology develops they could become more human-like in the future.

You can find the robot-voiced audiobooks, which use text-to-speech translation, by searching for ‘AI narration’ on Apple’s Books app.

This brings up a list of romance or fiction books (both free and paid for) that are described as being ‘narrated by digital voice based on a human narrator’.

There are two types of AI voice available to choose from, both of which have an American accent and speak only in English.

The first is a soprano called Madison and the second a baritone voice called Jackson, although two more voices, Helena and Mitchell, are on the way for non-fiction books. 

The company said it had used the advanced speech synthesis technology it developed ‘to produce high-quality audiobooks from an ebook file’. 

The hope from those in favour of AI-narrated audio books is that it could open up a new market to publishers and authors who’d previously been unable to afford moving from print to audio.

This in turn could lead to a huge growth in the number of audiobooks available to readers, with Apple claiming that digital narration technology will make creating audiobooks more accessible.

According to the Guardian, Apple approached independent publishers to see if they would be interested in working together on the project.

The tech giant kept its involvement secret but authors were reportedly told that the company behind the technology would shoulder the costs of turning their books into audiobooks and that they would be earning royalties.

Apple’s website also says that publishers and authors retain audiobook rights, and can put out other versions of the audiobook if they choose.   

The company’s approach to digital narration is the opposite of rival Amazon’s, whose Audible rules explicitly state that submitted audiobooks ‘must be narrated by a human’.

And despite the hope of Apple and others who support such AI narration, some are more skeptical. 

David Caron, a co-producer at Canada’s largest audiobook publisher, told the Guardian: ‘The narrator brings a whole new range of art in creating audiobook, and we believe that’s a powerful thing. 

‘They’re creating something that is different from the print book, but that adds value as an art form.’

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