Using AI for reading

[odamizu]

Originally Posted by arjaybe

Isn't text-to-speech these days using AI to read?

I've been impressed with ElevenReader, which uses AI for text-to-speech. Their voice quality is impressive and their pricing works for me. I used to use Voice Dream, but their voices are really robotic, even the ones that are supposedly AI.

Of course, if there's a human-narrated audiobook, I always go for that first. But every now and then there's something I want to read with my ears that doesn't have an audiobook. Then I use TTS.

[rantanplan]

Originally Posted by arjaybe

Isn't text-to-speech these days using AI to read?

It depends on what you mean by AI in this context. DeepL is an LLM. And apparently, it's outperforming everything that openAI has ever created.

Text-to-speech does not require an LLM.

[Graham44]

Originally Posted by jhowell

Yes, at least for books that are part of a series. There is no way to opt out of it.

Wow that is certainly something, the paranoid among us might think that's a great way for Amazon to teach their AI/ steal otherwise copyrighted work, but that's just being paranoid

[arjaybe]

Originally Posted by odamizu

I've been impressed with ElevenReader, which uses AI for text-to-speech. Their voice quality is impressive and their pricing works for me. I used to use Voice Dream, but their voices are really robotic, even the ones that are supposedly AI.

Of course, if there's a human-narrated audiobook, I always go for that first. But every now and then there's something I want to read with my ears that doesn't have an audiobook. Then I use TTS.

So, I guess it's a good idea that I make a note that my audiobooks are read by a human?

[odamizu]

Originally Posted by arjaybe

So, I guess it's a good idea that I make a note that my audiobooks are read by a human?

Oh, I wasn't referring to published/commercial audiobooks created with AI (i.e., Audible's "Virtual Voice" or OverDrive's "Synthesized Voice"). I guess if the author has chosen an AI narrator and I really wanted to support the author (e.g., maybe they're a new or indie author and couldn't afford a human narrator), I guess I would listen to it.

But what I was referring to are books or documents that don't have an audiobook at all. In that case, the only way to listen to it is by using Text-to-Speech, and some of the AI-powered TTS apps are impressive, sounding almost human.