this post was submitted on 13 May 2025
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[–] Kookie215@lemmy.world 12 points 5 days ago (4 children)

AI will write them and AI will read them to us.

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[–] selkiesidhe@lemm.ee 12 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I am okay with this only in cases where 1) the author approves, and 2) there is no audible version anyways.

Some people prefer listening to their books instead of reading and that's totally ok. Indie authors can't always afford to hire a narrator but I'd still want the buyers to be able to listen to the book.

Big question is, will the author get paid for the download or not...

[–] potoo22@programming.dev 10 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

I wouldn't support it even if the author couldn't afford it otherwise. There's no test to confirm that and knowing profit margines, all publishers will use AI for all their books.

Yes, I'd want smaller authors to have people listen to their books, but without oversight, it's going to ruin all audiobooks.

[–] drmoose@lemmy.world 6 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (15 children)

This is clearly the future despite the outrage here.

There are at least 389 living languages with over 1M speakers. That alone means it's impossible to reach some people and they get left out. Most of these languages dont even have enough professional voice actors to cover the bandwidth.

There are thousands of books released every year. That's impossible to cover even in English alone.

Its an objective net good to have more accessible audio books and the privileged people who do care about this stuff can very much afford to vote with their wallets for non-ai voices.

In fact since AI moat is so minimal this will very quickly be adapted by open source solution providing audio book access to millions if not billions of people to whom this was not an option. Its amazing.

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[–] Ilixtze@lemm.ee 8 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

I will Avoid Audio books with AI voices. I prefer the warmth of a human voice instead. A lot of my favorite Audiobooks are elevated by the interpretation of the professional actor. I am glad I have never even touched the Audible service, now I never will. I will also never consume anything written by a fucking AI.

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