new york – As people prepare for the disruptive impact of artificial intelligence on their work and daily lives, people around the world audio According to the book, their fields are already being transformed.
AI has the ability to create human-like recordings at line-up speed while bypassing at least some of the services of human professionals who have long made their living from voice.
Many of those companies have already experienced a sharp decline in business.
Tanya Eby has been working as a full-time voice actor and professional narrator for 20 years. She has a recording studio in her home.
But over the past six months, her workload has halved. Her reservation is currently until June, but in normal years she will be extended until August.
Many of her colleagues report similar declines.
“It seems logical that AI is affecting us all,” she told AFP, although other factors could be at play.
While there is no label that identifies AI-assisted recordings as such, experts say thousands of audiobooks in circulation today use “voices” generated from databanks.
Our most advanced service, DeepZen, offers rates that can cut audiobook production costs to less than a quarter of the cost of traditional projects.
The small London-based company uses a database created by recording the voices of several actors who were asked to speak with different emotional expressions.
DeepZen CEO Kamis Taylan said, “For every voice we use, we sign a license agreement and pay a recording fee.”
For all projects, “we pay royalties according to the work,” he added.
Evie says not everyone respects that standard.
“New unethical companies are popping up all the time, and some of them are using voices in databases for free,” she said.
Tyran acknowledged that there are “gray areas” being exploited on some platforms.
“They’re just combining your voice, mine and five other voices to create another voice… say it’s nobody’s.”
All audiobook companies contacted by AFP denied using such practices.
Texas-based startup Speechiki uses both its own recordings and voices from existing databanks, said CEO Dima Abramov.
But that will only happen after a contract including usage rights has been signed, he said.
Future of coexistence?
Five major U.S. publishers did not respond to requests for comment.
But some traditional publishers are already using so-called generative AI, which can create text, images, video and audio from existing content without human intervention, according to experts contacted by AFP. It says.
“Professional narration has been and will continue to be a core part of the Audible listening experience,” said a spokesperson for the Amazon subsidiary of the American audiobook giant.
“But as text-to-speech technology improves, we see a future where human performance and text-generated content can coexist.”
US tech giants deeply involved in the explosive growth of AI are all pursuing the promising business of digitally narrated audiobooks.
“Anyone Accessible”
Earlier this year, Apple announced its move to AI-narrated audiobooks, saying it would make “audiobook creation more accessible to everyone, especially independent authors and small publishers.”
Google offers a similar service, which it calls “automatic narration.”
“We need to democratize the publishing industry because only the most famous and big names are on audio,” Tyran said.
“Synthetic narration has only opened the door to old books that have never been recorded and all future books that will never be recorded for economic reasons,” added Speechiki’s Abramov.
Considering the cost of human recording, only about 5% of all books are converted to audiobooks, he added.
But Abramov argued that the growing market would also benefit voice actors.
“They will make more money and record more,” he said.
human element
“The essence of storytelling is to teach humans how to be human, and we strongly feel that it should not be taught by machines how to be human,” said the actor and audiobook author. Emily Ellett, who is also the narrator of Professional Audiobook Narrators Association (PANA).
“Storytelling should be completely human,” she added.
Ms. Evey highlighted frequent criticisms of digitally generated recordings.
Compared to human recordings, AI products “lack the emotional connection,” she says.
But Eby said he fears people will get used to the machine-generated version. “I think it’s quietly happening,” he said.
Her wish is simply, “I want companies to let listeners know they’re listening to AI-generated work… but I want people to be honest about it.”
