New AI systems have carved inroads into many industries, not least of all those involving voice and audio. Now the audiobook business is in trouble; since AI has the increasingly good ability to mimic the human voice and generate words, many voice actors and readers have watched the demand for their contributions steadily fall. According to a report from Tech Explore, voice actor Tanya Eby, who has been in the business for 20 years, has seen her workload drop by half.
This isn’t new. Human readers have been replaced by speech synthesis for 70 years, and synthesis has been fairly realistic for 30 years. Adding the AI suck-and-mix doesn’t make a huge improvement.
Eby said the AI audiobooks lack “emotional connectivity” that makes a good story worth listening to. She is also worried that people will simply get used to the machine-generated versions, and that this is already quietly happening.
Not a very strong argument. The only good argument here is CIVILIZATION.
We should be defending human skill because HUMANS ARE MEANT TO BE USEFUL. The entire fucking point of a civilization and an economy is to insure USEFULNESS and PAYMENT for the maximum variety of human traits and talents.
Unions formerly preserved civilization with force and blackmail. They knew how to encourage and train and pay for human talents. Unfortunately the tech world was founded by Randian libertarian lunatics who ALWAYS intended to eliminate all humans except Atlas himself.
The workers fell for the traps and promises of vast riches, which were always fraudulent and usually rugpulled.
Polistra's Mill 