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This doesn't answer the question, but I thought it might be relevant to mention here that I've been using chatGPT + resemble.ai to create what I believe is the

This doesn't answer the question, but I thought it might be relevant to mention here that I've been using chatGPT + resemble.ai to create what I believe is the first kid's stories podcast created entirely by AI. Here's how it works: - Kid requests a story about a, b, c on www.makedupstories.com - chatGPT generates the text for a story, summary, and title - we send this to resemble.ai (sounds like Tortoise TTS would work just as well), which has a clone of my voice - the audio file then gets sent to anchor.fm you can listen to example episodes here on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6liL4T3kJf1scHq134s0mJ https://open.spotify.com/show/6liL4T3kJf1scHq134s0mJ And here on Apple podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/kidscast-kids-stories-by-maked-up-stories/id1659969123 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/kidscast-kids-stories-...

ancientworldnow 4y ago
There is no joy in this process.
- richardfeynman 4y ago
  Are you kidding? there's tons of joy. I have a backlog of hundreds of kids story requests and now instead of being able to satisfy one kid per day I can satisfy as many as I want. moreover, kids can't tell the difference and love the stories.
  - generalizations 4y ago
    They're too young to articulate the difference caused by a lack of emotion in the storytelling; but as kids, they are still early enough in their developmental process that I imagine hearing massive amounts of spoken audio, which lacks emotional depth, will harm them. I'd be cautious.
    - richardfeynman 4y ago
      On the one hand, there's clear empirical evidence from parents that this helps improve kids' imagination and storytelling ability, and on the other hand we have your pure conjecture that "spoken audio which lacks emotional depth" can harm kids. I'm not buying it, but even if it were true it's pretty clear by the rate of improvement in voice cloning that soon there will be more emotional depth in this form of audio.
      - generalizations 4y ago
        From your other comment with the parent's feedback - > She couldn’t tell a difference. My husband and I could tell it was different [...] I wonder if the child will eventually be able to tell the difference, when the machine-generated audio is a large fraction of what they hear in their early years. Or if they just learn to consider that 'normal', and maybe model their own speech patterns after it. Also, anecdotes from parents (is that what you're referring to by "clear empirical evidence"?) are not evidence.
      - detourdog 4y ago
        Current literacy theory believes there is an education gap formed between pre-school age children that hear a lot of words vs. those that don’t get to hear as many. https://www.greatschools.org/gk/articles/word-gap-speak-more-words-to-your-preschooler-daily/ https://www.greatschools.org/gk/articles/word-gap-speak-more...
    - amelius 4y ago
      Another issue is that chatgpt has no humor. It can't tell jokes.
      - joshxyz 4y ago
        ChatGPT was great in assisting me in coding (I ask about postgresql stuff). But I do noticed it sucks at humor too. There's a saying that the best jokes are somewhat offensive if not very witty, and ChatGPT might be playing safe lol.
  - Siira 4y ago
    ChatGPT passes the kid Turing test!
    - mdp2021 4y ago
      > passes the kid Turing test There exists an interpretation of that statement that makes it a tautology. Edit: and/or makes it circular/symmetrical - "What is a "kid"" (a Turing test mis-labeller). A good AGI was required to be able to convince a panel - assuming an ideal panel, the usual simplification "employing" perfect agents in economic modelling -, and there now exist new means to conversely assess the panel.
- amelius 4y ago
  The joy is where you rake in the money. At least, that's how content farming used to work.
  - richardfeynman 4y ago
    That's not true. There's joy in making kids happy. Here's actual feedback from kids: "Hi richardfeynman and Merry Christmas! Carissa enjoyed her story and decided after that she needs to submit another one She couldn’t tell a difference. My husband and I could tell it was different, but still pretty impressive how the AI works! We will share with friends this week!" "Thank you so much for the story of Anders and his goat Gizmo. We love Maked up Stories and listen to one every evening, so it really made Anders’s day to have his own story. We have shared it with family and friends."
WheelsAtLarge 4y ago
I like your creativity. If I did not know it was AI, it would be hard for me to tell. I'm not a kid and have no kids so it's hard for me to appreciate this type of storytelling. Have you been able to gather an audience that regularly tunes in?
- richardfeynman 4y ago
  @wheelsatlarge the maked up stories podcast has 6 million downloads and this is growing quickly
- pcmaffey 4y ago
  If sitting your kids in front of an AI generated content farm bears little difference to sitting your kids in front of a human generated content farm, then yes, this is for you. It’s endless, zero marginal “entertainment” for your kids, an extra moment while you check your
braingenious 4y ago
This doesn’t answer the question, but let me plug my entirely unrelated product. Remember to like and subscribe and turn on notifications!
- richardfeynman 4y ago
  I'm not exactly trying to grow my kids stories podcast by plugging it to a developer audience. My comment is relevant because it's a cutting edge use case of text-to-speech.
  - braingenious 4y ago
    I’m not trying to plug my unrelated product, I’m just explaining how my unrelated product is cutting edge!
    - richardfeynman 4y ago
      This is such a cynical, unhelpful response. Someone asked HN for recommendations for text-to-speech software. I provided a recommendation and explained my use-case. I wasn't trying to grow my audience by posting this comment. I was trying to explain how I combined two new AI technologies to create a new offering. Of course I could be wrong, but based on my decade-plus experience on Hacker News, I think that this is precisely the kind of project PG intended to be discussed here when he created Hacker News.
      - braingenious 4y ago
        Imagine googling “open source text to speech software” and you get a link to Apple Podcasts for children’s stories. That would be wild!
        richardfeynman 4y ago
        Well, to state the obvious, OP chose not to google it and to ask HN instead, which is why I provided a technology recommendation and an example of a solution I hacked together using the technology.
flippinburgers 4y ago
I anyone else bothered by "maked up" in the url? Granted my grammar is slipping as I get older, but it doesn't sound like correct English to me. If incorrect, it feels a bit odd to be reinforcing something like that in the context of storytelling, which I would hope, is partly about the grammar being used.
- ghghgfdfgh 4y ago
  I'm assuming they were trying to imitate a child's manner of speech - i.e. children tend to lack the experience with language to know about a lot of special cases with the English past tense, leading to "eated" and "fighted", etc. The website name is just a play on words based on this.
  - richardfeynman 4y ago
    This is correct. Hopefully whatever improvement children get in their imagination by listening to these stories will offset whatever minor regression in language skills a child may experience due to this semantical humor, which indeed is intended to follow the form of a typical child's mistake.
    - mdp2021 4y ago
      > whatever improvement children get in their imagination I would have been warier of exposing them to products of unintelligence.
smallerfish 4y ago
Can you rethink your revenue model? Selling ads that'll be played to kids is pretty grim.
- richardfeynman 4y ago
  While I don't think it's grim to show ads to kids, particularly for relevant products, yes, I can and will rethink the revenue model.
  - UncleEntity 4y ago
    Sponsorship maybe? Have Tony the Tiger explaining the food pyramid or something.
    - egberts1 4y ago
      That’s GRRRRR-REAT!
Animats 4y ago
Now build all that into a teddy bear. First, though, read "I Always Do what Teddy Says", by Harry Harrison.
- richardfeynman 4y ago
  Wow, that's actually exactly what I was thinking. I will check that out! Thanks so much, I wish I could buy you a beer.

ancientworldnow 4y ago

There is no joy in this process.

richardfeynman 4y ago
Are you kidding? there's tons of joy. I have a backlog of hundreds of kids story requests and now instead of being able to satisfy one kid per day I can satisfy as many as I want. moreover, kids can't tell the difference and love the stories.
- generalizations 4y ago
  They're too young to articulate the difference caused by a lack of emotion in the storytelling; but as kids, they are still early enough in their developmental process that I imagine hearing massive amounts of spoken audio, which lacks emotional depth, will harm them. I'd be cautious.
  - richardfeynman 4y ago
    On the one hand, there's clear empirical evidence from parents that this helps improve kids' imagination and storytelling ability, and on the other hand we have your pure conjecture that "spoken audio which lacks emotional depth" can harm kids. I'm not buying it, but even if it were true it's pretty clear by the rate of improvement in voice cloning that soon there will be more emotional depth in this form of audio.
    - generalizations 4y ago
      From your other comment with the parent's feedback - > She couldn’t tell a difference. My husband and I could tell it was different [...] I wonder if the child will eventually be able to tell the difference, when the machine-generated audio is a large fraction of what they hear in their early years. Or if they just learn to consider that 'normal', and maybe model their own speech patterns after it. Also, anecdotes from parents (is that what you're referring to by "clear empirical evidence"?) are not evidence.
    - detourdog 4y ago
      Current literacy theory believes there is an education gap formed between pre-school age children that hear a lot of words vs. those that don’t get to hear as many. https://www.greatschools.org/gk/articles/word-gap-speak-more-words-to-your-preschooler-daily/ https://www.greatschools.org/gk/articles/word-gap-speak-more...
  - amelius 4y ago
    Another issue is that chatgpt has no humor. It can't tell jokes.
    - joshxyz 4y ago
      ChatGPT was great in assisting me in coding (I ask about postgresql stuff). But I do noticed it sucks at humor too. There's a saying that the best jokes are somewhat offensive if not very witty, and ChatGPT might be playing safe lol.
- Siira 4y ago
  ChatGPT passes the kid Turing test!
  - mdp2021 4y ago
    > passes the kid Turing test There exists an interpretation of that statement that makes it a tautology. Edit: and/or makes it circular/symmetrical - "What is a "kid"" (a Turing test mis-labeller). A good AGI was required to be able to convince a panel - assuming an ideal panel, the usual simplification "employing" perfect agents in economic modelling -, and there now exist new means to conversely assess the panel.
amelius 4y ago
The joy is where you rake in the money. At least, that's how content farming used to work.
- richardfeynman 4y ago
  That's not true. There's joy in making kids happy. Here's actual feedback from kids: "Hi richardfeynman and Merry Christmas! Carissa enjoyed her story and decided after that she needs to submit another one She couldn’t tell a difference. My husband and I could tell it was different, but still pretty impressive how the AI works! We will share with friends this week!" "Thank you so much for the story of Anders and his goat Gizmo. We love Maked up Stories and listen to one every evening, so it really made Anders’s day to have his own story. We have shared it with family and friends."

WheelsAtLarge 4y ago

I like your creativity. If I did not know it was AI, it would be hard for me to tell. I'm not a kid and have no kids so it's hard for me to appreciate this type of storytelling. Have you been able to gather an audience that regularly tunes in?

richardfeynman 4y ago
@wheelsatlarge the maked up stories podcast has 6 million downloads and this is growing quickly
pcmaffey 4y ago
If sitting your kids in front of an AI generated content farm bears little difference to sitting your kids in front of a human generated content farm, then yes, this is for you. It’s endless, zero marginal “entertainment” for your kids, an extra moment while you check your

braingenious 4y ago

This doesn’t answer the question, but let me plug my entirely unrelated product. Remember to like and subscribe and turn on notifications!

richardfeynman 4y ago
I'm not exactly trying to grow my kids stories podcast by plugging it to a developer audience. My comment is relevant because it's a cutting edge use case of text-to-speech.
- braingenious 4y ago
  I’m not trying to plug my unrelated product, I’m just explaining how my unrelated product is cutting edge!
  - richardfeynman 4y ago
    This is such a cynical, unhelpful response. Someone asked HN for recommendations for text-to-speech software. I provided a recommendation and explained my use-case. I wasn't trying to grow my audience by posting this comment. I was trying to explain how I combined two new AI technologies to create a new offering. Of course I could be wrong, but based on my decade-plus experience on Hacker News, I think that this is precisely the kind of project PG intended to be discussed here when he created Hacker News.
    - braingenious 4y ago
      Imagine googling “open source text to speech software” and you get a link to Apple Podcasts for children’s stories. That would be wild!
      - richardfeynman 4y ago
        Well, to state the obvious, OP chose not to google it and to ask HN instead, which is why I provided a technology recommendation and an example of a solution I hacked together using the technology.

flippinburgers 4y ago

I anyone else bothered by "maked up" in the url? Granted my grammar is slipping as I get older, but it doesn't sound like correct English to me. If incorrect, it feels a bit odd to be reinforcing something like that in the context of storytelling, which I would hope, is partly about the grammar being used.

ghghgfdfgh 4y ago
I'm assuming they were trying to imitate a child's manner of speech - i.e. children tend to lack the experience with language to know about a lot of special cases with the English past tense, leading to "eated" and "fighted", etc. The website name is just a play on words based on this.
- richardfeynman 4y ago
  This is correct. Hopefully whatever improvement children get in their imagination by listening to these stories will offset whatever minor regression in language skills a child may experience due to this semantical humor, which indeed is intended to follow the form of a typical child's mistake.
  - mdp2021 4y ago
    > whatever improvement children get in their imagination I would have been warier of exposing them to products of unintelligence.

smallerfish 4y ago

Can you rethink your revenue model? Selling ads that'll be played to kids is pretty grim.

richardfeynman 4y ago
While I don't think it's grim to show ads to kids, particularly for relevant products, yes, I can and will rethink the revenue model.
- UncleEntity 4y ago
  Sponsorship maybe? Have Tony the Tiger explaining the food pyramid or something.
  - egberts1 4y ago
    That’s GRRRRR-REAT!

Animats 4y ago

Now build all that into a teddy bear. First, though, read "I Always Do what Teddy Says", by Harry Harrison.

richardfeynman 4y ago
Wow, that's actually exactly what I was thinking. I will check that out! Thanks so much, I wish I could buy you a beer.