5 ms·

I've noticed a lot of AI narrated videos lately

by ape4 3y ago

542458 3y ago
Honestly that doesn’t bother me very much, so long as the script is human-written. YouTube has always had videos with TTS narration, and I’d rather be listening to that than an incomprehensible accent or $0.50 microphone. There’s one clever channel that makes content about the Deus Ex games that uses voice synths trained on the games’s characters - which, in addition to making the narration a bit more interesting is very on-brand for a cyberpunk game. Here’s a video. You can see that the translation from “real” JC Denton dialogue in the first few seconds to fake AI voice is surprisingly smooth (helped by the admittedly weird voice acting in the game), although there are always a few spots in the video where it breaks down (which the author usually leaves in for laughs): https://youtu.be/jDYVx3nqgxw https://youtu.be/jDYVx3nqgxw
- jwestbury 3y ago
  I was prepared to criticise this video - but upon inspection, it really captures the low quality[0] of the voice acting in an authentic manner! 0. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGE2ZB_3ZO0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGE2ZB_3ZO0
- taneq 3y ago
  Do you actually want a human-written script, or do you just want a good script, and use 'human-written' as a proxy for 'good'? In a hypothetical future where most AI generated content was qualitatively better than most human content, would you feel the same?
  - 542458 3y ago
    Oh for sure, my problem is primarily one of misinformation. If we managed to solve the hallucination problem such that AI content was more reliable than a reasonably smart human I wouldn’t have a problem with it. But for now AI has a bad habit of telling me that “mayonnaise” has four letter Ns or that you can melt eggs.
wincy 3y ago
I really hate when the top result for something on YouTube is an obviously AI narrated video. Even weirder when I realize it halfway through because it makes a mistake no human narrator would. I feel like someone cheated me out of my time. If you can’t spare the time to actually narrate something, why should I listen to it?
- cthor 3y ago
  Maybe the author is a good writer with interesting things to say, but has a bad speaking voice?
  - lupusreal 3y ago
    Write a book then? Blog? If I can't throw a baseball, then a career in baseball isn't for me. Trying to be a baseball player with a pitching machine to do the work for me isn't the way.
  - gs17 3y ago
    Or someone like Stephen Hawking who has great ideas but no other option for speaking.
  - tivert 3y ago
    > Maybe the author is a good writer with interesting things to say, but has a bad speaking voice? Possibly, but it's more likely the author was trying to make a quick buck by spamming low-quality content. Especially since the GP left the experience feeling cheated. AI narration also could probably be used to launder stolen content to make a buck off it. Did you find a good writer with interesting things to say? Steal his work and run it through AI narration and collect the clicks.
techterrier 3y ago
The David Attenboro 40k lore channels were hillarious
ajsnigrutin 3y ago
A bunch of "review" videos are just a referral link to aliexpress, a slideshow of aliexpress photos, some AI thing that takes the item description and condenses the data to a few sentences and text to speech that reads the text... Although, even with actual humans reviewing stuff, there is a very very high chance that the review is "influenced" (=paid by) the seller/manufacturer of the item.... there are only a few youtubers left, whose reviws I'd actually trust...

I've noticed a lot of AI narrated videos lately

by ape4 3y ago

I've noticed a lot of AI narrated videos lately

Honestly that doesn’t bother me very much, so long as the script is human-written. YouTube has always had videos with TTS narration, and I’d rather be listening to that than an incomprehensible accent or $0.50 microphone. There’s one clever channel that makes content about the Deus Ex games that uses voice synths trained on the games’s characters - which, in addition to making the narration a bit more interesting is very on-brand for a cyberpunk game. Here’s a video. You can see that the translation from “real” JC Denton dialogue in the first few seconds to fake AI voice is surprisingly smooth (helped by the admittedly weird voice acting in the game), although there are always a few spots in the video where it breaks down (which the author usually leaves in for laughs): https://youtu.be/jDYVx3nqgxw https://youtu.be/jDYVx3nqgxw

jwestbury 3y ago
I was prepared to criticise this video - but upon inspection, it really captures the low quality[0] of the voice acting in an authentic manner! 0. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGE2ZB_3ZO0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGE2ZB_3ZO0
taneq 3y ago
Do you actually want a human-written script, or do you just want a good script, and use 'human-written' as a proxy for 'good'? In a hypothetical future where most AI generated content was qualitatively better than most human content, would you feel the same?
- 542458 3y ago
  Oh for sure, my problem is primarily one of misinformation. If we managed to solve the hallucination problem such that AI content was more reliable than a reasonably smart human I wouldn’t have a problem with it. But for now AI has a bad habit of telling me that “mayonnaise” has four letter Ns or that you can melt eggs.

wincy 3y ago

I really hate when the top result for something on YouTube is an obviously AI narrated video. Even weirder when I realize it halfway through because it makes a mistake no human narrator would. I feel like someone cheated me out of my time. If you can’t spare the time to actually narrate something, why should I listen to it?

cthor 3y ago
Maybe the author is a good writer with interesting things to say, but has a bad speaking voice?
- lupusreal 3y ago
  Write a book then? Blog? If I can't throw a baseball, then a career in baseball isn't for me. Trying to be a baseball player with a pitching machine to do the work for me isn't the way.
- gs17 3y ago
  Or someone like Stephen Hawking who has great ideas but no other option for speaking.
- tivert 3y ago
  > Maybe the author is a good writer with interesting things to say, but has a bad speaking voice? Possibly, but it's more likely the author was trying to make a quick buck by spamming low-quality content. Especially since the GP left the experience feeling cheated. AI narration also could probably be used to launder stolen content to make a buck off it. Did you find a good writer with interesting things to say? Steal his work and run it through AI narration and collect the clicks.

techterrier 3y ago

The David Attenboro 40k lore channels were hillarious

ajsnigrutin 3y ago

A bunch of "review" videos are just a referral link to aliexpress, a slideshow of aliexpress photos, some AI thing that takes the item description and condenses the data to a few sentences and text to speech that reads the text... Although, even with actual humans reviewing stuff, there is a very very high chance that the review is "influenced" (=paid by) the seller/manufacturer of the item.... there are only a few youtubers left, whose reviws I'd actually trust...