4 ms·

If AI will render some jobs obsolete, I suppose the first one will be audio book narrators and voice actors.

by beltsazar 3y ago

riquito 3y ago
I can see a future where the label "100% narrated by a human" (and similar in other industries) will be a thing
- fbdab103 3y ago
  A la, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer.
- amelius 3y ago
  "No humans were fired in the making of this film"
washadjeffmad 3y ago
Hardly. Imagine licensing your voice to Amazon so that any customer could stream any book narrated in your likeness without you having to commit the time to record. You could still work as a custom voice artist, all with a "no clone" clause if you chose. You could profit from your performance and craft in a fraction of the time, focusing as your own agent on the management of your assets. Or, you could just keep and commit to your day job. Just imagine hearing the final novel of ASoIaF narrated by Roy Dotrice and knowing that a royalty went to his family and estate, or if David Attenborough willed the digital likeness of his voice and its performance to the BBC for use in nature documentaries after his death. The advent of recorded audio didn't put artists out of business, it expanded the industries that relied on them by allowing more of them to work. Film and tape didn't put artists out of business, it expanded the industries that relied on them by allowing more of them to work. Audio digitization and the internet didn't put artists out of business; it expanded the industries that relied on them by allowing more of them to work. And TTS won't put artists out of business, but it will create yet another new market with another niche that people will have to figure out how to monetize, even though 98% of the revenues will still somehow end up with the distributors.
- nikkwong 3y ago
  What you're not considering here is that a large majority of this industry is made up of no-name voice actors who have a pleasant (but perfectly substitutible) voice which is now something that AI can do perfectly and at a fraction of the price. Sure, celebrities and other well-known figures will have more to gain here as they can license out their voice; but the majority of voice actors won't be able to capitalize on this. So this is actually even more perverse because it again creates a system where all assets will accumulate at the top and there won't be any distributions for everyone else.
  - washadjeffmad 3y ago
    No, I am. I work with them, and I've been one (am one, rarely). I listed just one possible use, but I also see voice cloning and advanced TTS expanding access for evocative instruction, as an aid to study style and expand range. Don't be afraid on their behalf. The dooming you're talking about applied to every one of the technological changes I already listed, and we employ more performers and artists today than ever in history. When animation went digital, we graduated more storyboard artists and digital animators. When music notation software and sampling could replace musicians and orchestras, we graduated more musicians and composers trained on those tools. Now it's the performing arts, and no one in industry is going to shrink their pool of available talent (or risk ire) by daring conflate authenticity and performance with virtual impersonation. Performance capture and vfx also didn't kill or consolidate the movie industry - it allowed it to expand. Art evolves, and so does its business. People who love art want to see people who do art succeed. I'm optimistic.
    - nikkwong 3y ago
      I don't know, I feel like the work produced through voice acting is more of a commodity than work in the other industries that you're describing. Sure, a voice actor can add a lot of emotion and verbal nuance in a way that is differentiating, but I'm not sure if the difference is enough to matter for most people for the vast majority of cases. (Or I may be too dense to realize it). This is in contradiction to say performing arts, where there are in my opinion many more dimensions to the creative output which makes it less perfectly substitutable.

If AI will render some jobs obsolete, I suppose the first one will be audio book narrators and voice actors.

riquito 3y ago

I can see a future where the label "100% narrated by a human" (and similar in other industries) will be a thing

fbdab103 3y ago
A la, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer.
amelius 3y ago
"No humans were fired in the making of this film"

washadjeffmad 3y ago

Hardly. Imagine licensing your voice to Amazon so that any customer could stream any book narrated in your likeness without you having to commit the time to record. You could still work as a custom voice artist, all with a "no clone" clause if you chose. You could profit from your performance and craft in a fraction of the time, focusing as your own agent on the management of your assets. Or, you could just keep and commit to your day job. Just imagine hearing the final novel of ASoIaF narrated by Roy Dotrice and knowing that a royalty went to his family and estate, or if David Attenborough willed the digital likeness of his voice and its performance to the BBC for use in nature documentaries after his death. The advent of recorded audio didn't put artists out of business, it expanded the industries that relied on them by allowing more of them to work. Film and tape didn't put artists out of business, it expanded the industries that relied on them by allowing more of them to work. Audio digitization and the internet didn't put artists out of business; it expanded the industries that relied on them by allowing more of them to work. And TTS won't put artists out of business, but it will create yet another new market with another niche that people will have to figure out how to monetize, even though 98% of the revenues will still somehow end up with the distributors.

nikkwong 3y ago
What you're not considering here is that a large majority of this industry is made up of no-name voice actors who have a pleasant (but perfectly substitutible) voice which is now something that AI can do perfectly and at a fraction of the price. Sure, celebrities and other well-known figures will have more to gain here as they can license out their voice; but the majority of voice actors won't be able to capitalize on this. So this is actually even more perverse because it again creates a system where all assets will accumulate at the top and there won't be any distributions for everyone else.
- washadjeffmad 3y ago
  No, I am. I work with them, and I've been one (am one, rarely). I listed just one possible use, but I also see voice cloning and advanced TTS expanding access for evocative instruction, as an aid to study style and expand range. Don't be afraid on their behalf. The dooming you're talking about applied to every one of the technological changes I already listed, and we employ more performers and artists today than ever in history. When animation went digital, we graduated more storyboard artists and digital animators. When music notation software and sampling could replace musicians and orchestras, we graduated more musicians and composers trained on those tools. Now it's the performing arts, and no one in industry is going to shrink their pool of available talent (or risk ire) by daring conflate authenticity and performance with virtual impersonation. Performance capture and vfx also didn't kill or consolidate the movie industry - it allowed it to expand. Art evolves, and so does its business. People who love art want to see people who do art succeed. I'm optimistic.
  - nikkwong 3y ago
    I don't know, I feel like the work produced through voice acting is more of a commodity than work in the other industries that you're describing. Sure, a voice actor can add a lot of emotion and verbal nuance in a way that is differentiating, but I'm not sure if the difference is enough to matter for most people for the vast majority of cases. (Or I may be too dense to realize it). This is in contradiction to say performing arts, where there are in my opinion many more dimensions to the creative output which makes it less perfectly substitutable.