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The "Helena" sample contains a pretty good test case of this system's ability to guess where emphasis and pauses go: > I know Bill carried within him deep curr

The "Helena" sample contains a pretty good test case of this system's ability to guess where emphasis and pauses go: > I know Bill carried within him deep currents of spiritual yearning that he found easiest to express through the beauty he saw in all places wild. (I checked in an online sample of the ebook: there is no punctuation in this sentence.) Unfortunately the AI completely faceplants, placing an enormous pause right in the middle of the phrase "all places wild". It actually changes the meaning of the text, making it sound more like "...the beauty he saw in all places. Wild!" I wonder if any of these AI speech synthesis tools come with an editing tool that you could use to tell it not to put the pause there.

m_eiman 4y ago
I'm guessing that the main reason they require you to go through their "preferred partners" is that their job is to insert annontations that the speech generator needs to make it sound good. I wonder if this is because it's difficult work, or if the tools aren't user friendly enough to put in the hands of untrained users. If it's the latter I suppose that sooner or later we won't need to go through the partners.
- csande17 4y ago
  The sample is taken from a full audiobook that is currently available for sale, so you'd think they would've put an annotation on "all places wild" if they had that ability.
cprecioso 4y ago
I guess this is more of a case of garbage in - garbage out. The original sentence itself is not well-structured. But people who write like that and don't edit it; won't care of how the AI reads it. I don't feel like this is a product for carefully producing audiobooks, but to create them by the pound, so to speak. I'd say it's a move for the "make your own business through audiobooks" people [1] -- very strange for Apple. [1]: I didn't know this audience existed until I saw this video on it (and the cons that happen) from Dan Olson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biYciU1uiUw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biYciU1uiUw
- ClassyJacket 4y ago
  I can understand that sentence fine, I don't see anything wrong with it.
  - dbspin 4y ago
    Writer here, it's a terrible sentence. "I know Bill carried within him deep currents of spiritual yearning that he found easiest to express through the beauty he saw in all places wild." "Deep currents of spiritual yearning" is both cliched and unspecific / unclear. "That" is superfluous. It's unclear how Bill is expressing the beauty he sees, and the sentence structure implies he's somehow responsible for the natural beauty. "All places wild" is wilfully awkward and anachronistic. There are countless better ways to say the same thing. For example the tone would be similar and the sentence more concise just to say: 'When Bill spoke of the beauty of nature, I could sense it inspired spiritual feelings in him.' Or simply: Natural beauty inspired in Bill a yearning for connection to something spiritual. Neither are great - because the central thought is unclear. Writing is to a large extent the process of expressing a thought or feeling. Clarifying exactly what one wants to say is a central part of writing and editing. The author seems to have failed to clearly define their idea or emotion, so its expression is decorated rather than clarified however you phrase it.
    - gbourne 4y ago
      > "That" is superfluous. I always use the trick when I write of reading the sentence without the "that"...still makes sense then you don't need "that". Mostly.
    - bottled_poe 4y ago
      > Writing is to a large extent the process of expressing a thought or feeling Neither of which we believe a machine to be capable of conceiving.
    - jtbayly 4y ago
      It doesn’t matter if the sentence is terrible writing. It can still be easily read out loud correctly, but not by this computer program.
float4 4y ago
> Unfortunately the AI completely faceplants, placing an enormous pause right in the middle of the phrase "all places wild". It actually changes the meaning of the text, making it sound more like "...the beauty he saw in all places. Wild!" I disagree for 2 reasons: 1. There's a perfectly fine reason to put a pause between "places" and "wild": to put emphasis on "wild". Bill doesn't see beauty in all places, but specifically in all wild places. 2. Interpreting the narration as "[...] all places. Wild!" is farfetched because the narrator pronounces "wild" very calmly and softly. I agree the pause is a bit too long, but I was expecting way worse when I read your comment about how "the AI completely faceplants".
- the_other 4y ago
  I disagree with both reasons. 1. A long pause between "places" and "wild", to me, signals their dis-association, that "wild" does not link with "places". However, the lack of punctuation in the written text implies the phrase "all places wild", the "all wild places" you refer to. I'm with the GP here, the AI didn't convey the meaning I'd expect from the text. 2. Also, the preceding text seems to discuss a certain "ineffability", a spiritual/magic in the world that seems diffuse, broad and subtle. With that context, pronouncing "wild" calmly and softly ties it to the earlier ineffability rather than the more discrete "places". Again, this reinforces the "...places. Wild!" interpretation. I am very impressed the AI used two or more modes of expression (time, tone) to express a feeling... but I disagree that's what the text held. Maybe the AI's smarter than me.
  - float4 4y ago
    > A long pause between "places" and "wild", to me, signals their dis-association, that "wild" does not link with "places" But that long pause is still way shorter than the pauses at actual periods! Look at the waveform[0]: the ovals are the periods, the rectangle is the pause between "places" and "wild". I guess due to the length of the pauses at the actual periods, my brain automatically discards the possibility of "all places. Wild!" and then the best interpretation clearly is "all places wild" for me. But hey, the fact that at least two people interpreted it differently says something. Maybe this was more of a faceplant than I initially realized. [0] https://imgur.com/a/j9CtZFZ https://imgur.com/a/j9CtZFZ
raverbashing 4y ago
And might I add, Helena does not sound like a Soprano given the speech tone. (Also, smoking is bad mmmmkay)
jkmcf 4y ago
A number of books I've been reading aloud leave out the comma after a prepositional phrase (and friends), and it totally throws off my cadence.
adolph 4y ago
Perhaps this bug could be a feature? A panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air. "Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder. "I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up." The waiter turns to the relevant entry in the manual and, sure enough, finds an explanation. "Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots & leaves." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eats,_Shoots_&_Leaves https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eats,_Shoots_&_Leaves
twobitshifter 4y ago
By normal sentence construction it would be all wild places. It’s a good test as you say, the author is having fun with grammar to give you the idea that it’s a subset of places rather than “wild places”, so I would expect it to be written with a link between places and wild, “all places-wild.”
- csande17 4y ago
  I've seen this construction used in a lot of places (like the name of "All Things Digital", the predecessor to Re/code), but I have never heard of anyone putting a dash between the last two words.

m_eiman 4y ago

I'm guessing that the main reason they require you to go through their "preferred partners" is that their job is to insert annontations that the speech generator needs to make it sound good. I wonder if this is because it's difficult work, or if the tools aren't user friendly enough to put in the hands of untrained users. If it's the latter I suppose that sooner or later we won't need to go through the partners.

csande17 4y ago
The sample is taken from a full audiobook that is currently available for sale, so you'd think they would've put an annotation on "all places wild" if they had that ability.

cprecioso 4y ago

I guess this is more of a case of garbage in - garbage out. The original sentence itself is not well-structured. But people who write like that and don't edit it; won't care of how the AI reads it. I don't feel like this is a product for carefully producing audiobooks, but to create them by the pound, so to speak. I'd say it's a move for the "make your own business through audiobooks" people [1] -- very strange for Apple. [1]: I didn't know this audience existed until I saw this video on it (and the cons that happen) from Dan Olson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biYciU1uiUw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biYciU1uiUw

ClassyJacket 4y ago
I can understand that sentence fine, I don't see anything wrong with it.
- dbspin 4y ago
  Writer here, it's a terrible sentence. "I know Bill carried within him deep currents of spiritual yearning that he found easiest to express through the beauty he saw in all places wild." "Deep currents of spiritual yearning" is both cliched and unspecific / unclear. "That" is superfluous. It's unclear how Bill is expressing the beauty he sees, and the sentence structure implies he's somehow responsible for the natural beauty. "All places wild" is wilfully awkward and anachronistic. There are countless better ways to say the same thing. For example the tone would be similar and the sentence more concise just to say: 'When Bill spoke of the beauty of nature, I could sense it inspired spiritual feelings in him.' Or simply: Natural beauty inspired in Bill a yearning for connection to something spiritual. Neither are great - because the central thought is unclear. Writing is to a large extent the process of expressing a thought or feeling. Clarifying exactly what one wants to say is a central part of writing and editing. The author seems to have failed to clearly define their idea or emotion, so its expression is decorated rather than clarified however you phrase it.
  - gbourne 4y ago
    > "That" is superfluous. I always use the trick when I write of reading the sentence without the "that"...still makes sense then you don't need "that". Mostly.
  - bottled_poe 4y ago
    > Writing is to a large extent the process of expressing a thought or feeling Neither of which we believe a machine to be capable of conceiving.
  - jtbayly 4y ago
    It doesn’t matter if the sentence is terrible writing. It can still be easily read out loud correctly, but not by this computer program.

float4 4y ago

> Unfortunately the AI completely faceplants, placing an enormous pause right in the middle of the phrase "all places wild". It actually changes the meaning of the text, making it sound more like "...the beauty he saw in all places. Wild!" I disagree for 2 reasons: 1. There's a perfectly fine reason to put a pause between "places" and "wild": to put emphasis on "wild". Bill doesn't see beauty in all places, but specifically in all wild places. 2. Interpreting the narration as "[...] all places. Wild!" is farfetched because the narrator pronounces "wild" very calmly and softly. I agree the pause is a bit too long, but I was expecting way worse when I read your comment about how "the AI completely faceplants".

the_other 4y ago
I disagree with both reasons. 1. A long pause between "places" and "wild", to me, signals their dis-association, that "wild" does not link with "places". However, the lack of punctuation in the written text implies the phrase "all places wild", the "all wild places" you refer to. I'm with the GP here, the AI didn't convey the meaning I'd expect from the text. 2. Also, the preceding text seems to discuss a certain "ineffability", a spiritual/magic in the world that seems diffuse, broad and subtle. With that context, pronouncing "wild" calmly and softly ties it to the earlier ineffability rather than the more discrete "places". Again, this reinforces the "...places. Wild!" interpretation. I am very impressed the AI used two or more modes of expression (time, tone) to express a feeling... but I disagree that's what the text held. Maybe the AI's smarter than me.
- float4 4y ago
  > A long pause between "places" and "wild", to me, signals their dis-association, that "wild" does not link with "places" But that long pause is still way shorter than the pauses at actual periods! Look at the waveform[0]: the ovals are the periods, the rectangle is the pause between "places" and "wild". I guess due to the length of the pauses at the actual periods, my brain automatically discards the possibility of "all places. Wild!" and then the best interpretation clearly is "all places wild" for me. But hey, the fact that at least two people interpreted it differently says something. Maybe this was more of a faceplant than I initially realized. [0] https://imgur.com/a/j9CtZFZ https://imgur.com/a/j9CtZFZ

raverbashing 4y ago

And might I add, Helena does not sound like a Soprano given the speech tone. (Also, smoking is bad mmmmkay)

jkmcf 4y ago

A number of books I've been reading aloud leave out the comma after a prepositional phrase (and friends), and it totally throws off my cadence.

adolph 4y ago

Perhaps this bug could be a feature? A panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air. "Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder. "I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up." The waiter turns to the relevant entry in the manual and, sure enough, finds an explanation. "Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots & leaves." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eats,_Shoots_&_Leaves https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eats,_Shoots_&_Leaves

twobitshifter 4y ago

By normal sentence construction it would be all wild places. It’s a good test as you say, the author is having fun with grammar to give you the idea that it’s a subset of places rather than “wild places”, so I would expect it to be written with a link between places and wild, “all places-wild.”

csande17 4y ago
I've seen this construction used in a lot of places (like the name of "All Things Digital", the predecessor to Re/code), but I have never heard of anyone putting a dash between the last two words.