ACX/Audible is also going to be continuing to mainstream their AI narration ‘services’ generally, but this is what caught my eye: “ACX’s new AI tool will allow voice narrators to replicate their own voice.” Translating some of the PR-speak on the fly, ACX will take a maybe-representative sample of the narrators’ voices, recreate it in hopefully an accurate fashion, and presumably pay a smaller royalty to the narrators to “reflect the work involved in creating and managing voice replica productions.”
That last is kind of harsh. Why? Because while I might not be inherently upset if somebody cloned their own voice for one of my audiobooks (since Audible didn’t steal it from somebody else), I am absolutely not going to pay full price for something like that. I might not even pay ten cents on the dollar. And why should I? When I got a narrator for FROZEN DREAMS, I was happily paying for the time and effort as well as the voice. If neither is as much of a factor, then my initial offer is going to reflect that.
Sorry if this seems hardnosed. But self-publishing is a business. I won’t pay boutique prices for mass-produced product.
Nor should you.
(Shrug) I’ve heard the results of the program. It’s much better than the robotic modulation, but it still triggers my uncanny valley reaction.
But the thing is, there have been two, going on three generations that have been raised on autotune. Something that makes me want to rip my ears off and go stumbling back into the safety of a dark age, bothers my kids not at all.
I don’t think anybody is using this to segregate their audience yet, but it’s going to happen, and it won’t be for benign purposes.
That’s a very good point that I don’t think they have thought through.