Apple’s AI audiobooks are a long way from killing off human narrators
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If you’re a fan of audiobooks, Apple just gave you a taste of the future by launching its first series of books with AI stories. But while the move is fascinating with major implications, the narrators’ robot tones show that beloved human voices will be around for a while yet.
You can find the AI voiced audiobooks, which use text-to-speech translation, in the Apple Books app by searching for “AI Narration.” This displays a list of romance or fiction books (both free and paid) with the description “narrated by Apple Books”.
Apple Books offers two types of AI voices — a soprano called Madison and a baritone called Jackson — both of which have an American accent and currently only speak in English. You can get a taste of what they sound like by tapping the “preview” button under any of the titles described in Apple Books.
At this point, both of Apple’s AI voices undoubtedly have a robotic, artificial quality to them. You won’t easily mistake them for the warm, expressive tones of popular storytellers like Stephen Fry or Julia Whelan. But while the uncanny valley remains a difficult obstacle for AI storytellers to cross, they are undoubtedly on a fast track to our ears.
Naturally, says apple (opens in new tab) the AI voices were developed to make audiobooks “more accessible to everyone”. But they’re also making the multi-billion dollar audiobook industry more accessible to tech giant. And the new Apple Books feature is just the start of a fierce battle with the likes of Amazon and Spotify for our audiobook-loving ears.
Express concerns
For now, we see AI narrators mostly limited to books from smaller independent publishers. This could spark an explosion in the number of audiobooks available to readers across all devices, as digital storytelling opens up a new market for publishers and authors who previously couldn’t afford the jump from print to audio.
But backlash from larger publishers and voice actors could also slow the rise of robo-narrators. Amazon’s Kindle e-readers officially lost their text-to-speech capabilities a few years ago, even though there are workarounds in the accessibility menus. That decision was at least in part due to copyright issues and audiobooks being legally considered separate works of art.
Audible, owned by Amazon, has that too long written (opens in new tab) about which narrators fit different types of books and how publishers choose the right one. The blog says that “the most important aspect when it comes to audiobooks is that the voice matches the tone and genre of the book”. This is somewhat difficult to achieve when, like Apple Books, you only have two voices.
Audible also says that “experienced voice actors can distinguish between vocal characteristics quite easily by playing with pitch, intonation, volume and accents”. evening classes in emotional mirroring.
But the new Apple Books feature is clearly just the beginning of an inevitable explosion of AI speech technology. And the really big moment for audiobooks could be when, instead of robotically reading a script, AI can convincingly mimic a famous voice actor – a leap that may not be too far off, based on recent showcases from the likes of Amazon .
Fake empire
After all, deepfakes aren’t just limited to frighteningly convincing videos of a synthetic substance Morgan Freeman (opens in new tab) or Tom Cruise (opens in new tab) – AI-powered speech technology is also developing rapidly.
Viral web apps like Uber duck (opens in new tab) let you generate speech in the voices of past presidents or cartoon characters, last year Amazon showed (opens in new tab) a slightly terrifying new Alexa ability that could read The Wizard of Oz to a child in their grandmother’s voice.
With ao Google Wavenet (opens in new tab) also advancing the technology will only make AI voices more convincing. For now, the barriers to widespread adoption in audiobooks will likely be more legal and ethical than technological. But Apple Books’ artificial narrators are the sound of our synthetic future — and in the not-too-distant future, celebrity voice narrators will likely be copyrighting and licensing their own voices as well.
For now, the evidence in Apple Books suggests that these AI voices are currently best suited for non-fiction and factual works, rather than telling emotional stories. For novels, like movies, we are still a long way from artificial actors who can convincingly tug at our heartstrings without ruining the tension with a robotic inflection or a flat note. But a deluge of AI audiobooks is sure to come, one way or another.