Synthetic voices have have been spreading for years, and the generative AI boom of the modern 2020s has accelerated the process. AI voices are everywhere—in podcasts, political campaigns, and chatbots, where they perhaps not-so-subtly replicate celebrity voices. Soon, they’ll be in your audiobooks, too.
Audible, an audiobook company owned by Amazon, a trial program was announced to generate AI voice clones to read works for the audiobook market. The announcement came via a post on ACX—Audiobook Creation Exchange—Audioble’s service that lets authors and publishers turn written books into audiobooks.
“We’re taking deliberate steps to test new technologies that will help us expand our catalog,” the post reads, “and this week we’re inviting a small group of narrators to participate in a US-only beta that will allow them to create and monetize replicas of their own voices using AI-generated speech technology.”
Audible says both narrators and authors will have control over what projects their AI voices are used in. Final versions of narrations will be checked for mispronunciations and other errors as part of the ACX production process.
Still, it may seem a bit inconsistent with Audible’s current approach to narrated audiobooks, considering that even after this announcement, ACX submission requirements still insist that audiobook narrations “must be read by a human.” However, Amazon has previously been bullish on AI and has implemented similar audio AI program last year in connection with Kindle publishing activities.
Audible’s program is currently narrow to a select group of narrators. But it’s effortless to see where this could go, and Audible could soon open up to allow any author to generate an AI voice that can read their own book. Other companies are also working in this space; startup Rebind is hiring authors to allow their voices to be cloned so that their AI version can “guide” readers through their texts. Audiobook fans are on the fence about all this.
Personally, I can’t wait to get my hands on these sweet yet amazing voices dinosaur erotica.
Here’s some other news from the world of consumer tech from this week.
Documents, please
Google is letting users digitize even more of their personal data. Next up: passports.
Google added digital driver’s licenses to its Wallet platform last year, allowing Android users to store identifying information on their phones. Soon (Google doesn’t say when exactly), users will be able to do the same with your US passports.
Of course, there are some caveats. The Google Wallet version of Passport will only be accepted at specific TSA checkpoints where digital IDs are allowed. (Here’s the map.) Google also recommends that you carry your passport with you at all costs. Digital IDs aren’t generally accepted outside of airports, so if you find yourself in a tight spot abroad, you’ll want to carry a physical document. But for a lucky subset of travelers, it will solve the problem of having to take another item out of their bag when going through airport security.
Holding cards
Hey, speaking of Google, the company also announced some good news for all of us muddy browser tab collectors. Tab grouping is a feature in Google Chrome that lets you tuck all of your browser tabs into group folders for easier sorting. (I’ll read them later, I swear!) Google says its grouping feature will be synced soon platforms. This means you can seamlessly continue browsing your desktop on your mobile device, where you definitely won’t just ignore them.
Tab grouping is coming to Chrome on iOS soon, and it should be able to sync across computers. How soon will all this happen? Well, Google was once again unclear. Regardless, you better start collecting all those browser tabs now. You never know when you might need them again.
Menlo Upon Tyne
Meta — the AI company behind Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp — has announced that its AI services are set to colonize a modern cultural sphere: the British. Meta said it will train its AI models using data from users of their platforms in the UK.
More specifically, data will be collected from anyone who uses Facebook or Instagram in the UK, and then used to train Meta’s AI accordingly. In its announcement, Meta says it hopes the move will support its AI tools more accurately reflect British culture and speech.