“They take your voice, my voice, five other people’s voices combined that just creates a separate voice… They say that it doesn’t belong to anybody.”Īll the audio book companies contacted by AFP denied using such practices. “There’s that gray area” being exploited by several platforms, Taylan acknowledged. “All these new companies are popping up who are not as ethical,” she said, and some use voices found in databases without paying for them. Not everyone respects that standard, said Eby. “Every voice that we are using, we sign a license agreement, and we pay for the recordings,” said DeepZen CEO Kamis Taylan.įor every project, he added, “we pay royalties based on the work that we do.” The small London-based company draws from a database it created by recording the voices of several actors who were asked to speak in a variety of emotional registers. There is no label identifying AI-assisted recordings as such, but professionals say thousands of audio books currently in circulation use “voices” generated from a databank.Īmong the most cutting-edge, DeepZen offers rates that can slash the cost of producing an audio book to one-fourth, or less, that of a traditional project.

While other factors could be at play, she told AFP, “It seems to make sense that AI is affecting all of us.” Many of her colleagues report similar declines. Her bookings now run only through June, while in a normal year they would extend through August. Tanya Eby has been a full-time voice actor and professional narrator for 20 years. She has a recording studio in her home.īut in the past six months she has seen her work load fall by half. Many of them are already seeing a sharp drop off in business. Audio book narrators say AI is already taking away businessĪs people brace for the disruptive impact of artificial intelligence on jobs and everyday living, those in the world of audio books say their field is already being transformed.ĪI has the ability to create human-sounding recordings - at assembly-line speed - while bypassing at least part of the services of the human professionals who for years have made a living with their voices.

Paradise lost audiobook