Audible unveils plans to use AI voices to narrate audiobooks

Audible has announced plans to usage AI exertion to narrate audiobooks, with AI translation to follow.

The Amazon-owned audiobook supplier has said it volition beryllium making its AI accumulation exertion disposable to definite publishers via “select partnerships”.

“We are bringing caller audiobooks to beingness done our ain afloat integrated, end-to-end AI accumulation technology,” reads the announcement connected Audible’s website. There are 2 options for publishers wishing to marque usage of the technology: “Audible-managed” accumulation oregon “self-service”, whereby publishers nutrient their ain audiobooks with the assistance of Audible’s AI technology.

Both options volition let publishers to take from much than 100 AI-generated voices crossed English, Spanish, French and Italian to narrate their books. AI translation of audiobooks is expected to beryllium disposable aboriginal successful the year.

“Audible believes that AI represents a momentous accidental to grow the availability of audiobooks with the imaginativeness of offering customers each publication successful each language, alongside our continued investments successful premium archetypal content,” said Bob Carrigan, the main enforcement of Audible. “We’ll beryllium capable to bring much stories to beingness – helping creators scope caller audiences portion ensuring listeners worldwide tin entree bonzer books that mightiness different ne'er scope their ears.”

However, Audible’s announcement has been met with disapproval from writers, translators and dependable actors. “This short-sighted strategy reduces what we emotion astir storytelling to the elemental transportation of code,” said Chocolat writer Joanne Harris. “In an property of declining literacy, I can’t deliberation of thing much apt to enactment radical disconnected listening to audiobooks altogether.”

Kristin Atherton, who has narrated much than 400 audiobook titles connected Audible, said quality narrators “actively merchantability audio contented by being bully astatine their jobs”.

“The creation – and it is an creation – of a bully audiobook is the ace successful the dependable astatine a infinitesimal of unexpected emotion, the wryness of bully drama timing, oregon the disbelief a listener feels erstwhile 1 idiosyncratic tin convincingly beryllium a full formed of characters,” she added. “No substance however ‘human’ an AI dependable sounds, it’s those small intricacies that crook a bully publication into an fantabulous one. AI can’t replicate that.”

Stephen Briggs, who voiced immoderate of the audiobooks of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels, said: “The usage of AI to regenerate quality creativity is successful itself a unsafe path,” portion histrion and audiobook narrator Deepti Gupta said: “We request to make more, not less, abstraction for Bipoc narrators and these AI tools are a caller mode to marginalise and colonise the voices that request to beryllium heard.”

Nichola Smalley, who translates Swedish and Norwegian lit into English, said though the thought that Audible’s caller services volition alteration much books to scope wider audiences is “alluring”, her acquisition with caller developments specified arsenic this “is that they nutrient a glut of mediocre results that nary 1 truly wholeheartedly enjoys”.

“Time aft time, generative AI has been shown to nutrient lowest-common-denominator results, portion quality translators, portion fallible, usage their personalities and the serendipity of the quality caput to nutrient unsocial solutions to linguistic and literate problems, thereby creating art,” she added.

Prominent literate translator, Frank Wynne, known for his enactment translating French and Spanish books into English, said: “No 1 pretends to usage AI, for translation, audiobooks, oregon adjacent penning books due to the fact that they are better, the lone excuse is that they are cheaper. Which is lone existent if you disregard the immense processing powerfulness adjacent the simplest AI petition requires.”

“In the hunt for a inexpensive simulacra to an existent human, we are prepared to pain down the satellite and telephone it progress,” helium added.

Meanwhile, Anna Ganley, main enforcement of the UK’s largest writers’ body, the Society of Authors, said though this innovation “will grow the availability of audiobooks and assistance writers of each profiles scope caller audiences”, the opportunities offered “must beryllium transparent some to authors and consumers. Audible’s AI tool, and others similar it, indispensable not beryllium utilized arsenic a backmost doorway to thatch and refine existing AI tools. Authors indispensable beryllium included successful the process and not get unopen retired by tech companies and publishers. They indispensable besides beryllium capable to take whether their enactment is narrated by a quality oregon synthetic voice, and this indispensable beryllium intelligibly labelled to consumers.”

Since past year, Audible has allowed self-publishing authors successful the US to usage its “virtual voice” exertion crook their ebooks into audiobooks. More than 60,000 of these computer-generated audiobooks presently exist.

Founded successful 1995, Audible is the longstanding planetary marketplace person for audiobooks. Its archetypal comparable rival arrived successful 2023 erstwhile Spotify started offering audiobooks to its premium subscribers. Membership, which costs £7.99 a period successful the UK, is reportedly astatine an all-time high.