[Littérature] Audio books and human voice: an uncertain future

The AI has started to transform the world of audio books. In addition, with the ability to create recordings without using a human narrator each time. For example, An evolution that worries.

Make a book read in full for its audio version is expensive, too expensive for some promoters of this format. Moreover, So they invest in the cloning of voice and the summary voices. Similarly, Nicolas Sarkozy, for example, recorded in 2021 more than 13 hours of his memories of president, Storm time. For example, In English, Barack Obama was stronger with A Promised Land In 2020: 29 hours. Therefore, Other books are read by actors. For example, Denis Podalydès has thus lent his voice to many classics of literature. Furthermore, of Martin Edenfrom Jack London, to Cheetahes DA GAMPE GAMPAGE GAMPES LIGANT perMO TE – Clothing de Nuvan [littérature] audio books human voice: and baudelire.

But productions of this kind. Meanwhile, quite or very expensive, have an uncertain future among audio books, which now call for artificial intelligence (AI). Furthermore, Apple has been offering synthetic audio books since 2023. Furthermore, At the Paris Book Festival. Therefore, in April, Librinova, the French number one of the self -publishing, said that said “the vocal cloning technology, which makes it possible to obtain a quality much higher than that of synthetic voices, often too robotic”. Meanwhile, An author records the reading of a small part only of his book. the AI will extrapolate the other part.

The global giant of streaming Spotify had indicated. in the same event, that it investigated a million euros for “books narrated by the voice of summary”, in other words a machine which imitates, more and more faithfully, the human voice. And to explain: “the significant production [littérature] audio books human voice: costs. the still emerging adoption of the use of the audio book have had the consequences of limiting the offer and the existing catalog in French.” Spotify clearly tells its users what voice makes them read. It is up to them to know if they accept that it is artificial.

And if. since February, the Swedish group has accepted the content produced via the specialized company Elevenlabs, which offers the transcription of the text with the synthetic voice in 32 languages, the platform does not give up the books fully read by a human. “They come to help publishers by funding part of the production. For a market to develop. be mature, it takes everything, ”underlines the director general of Hugo Publishing, Arthur de Saint-Vincent.

This publisher. who has established himself as the number one of romance in France, announced an offensive in [littérature] audio books human voice: the audio book, without AI on his side. With his parent company, Glénat, he will offer 200 new titles in the next three years. “We are at a development stage where we can invest in quality production. So. we want to choose the voices, work with actors and, with the partner we have chosen, the Blynd studio in Lyon, being uncompromising every time, ”says Hugo’s boss.

However, not everyone has cash to follow. In 2021. the number one of the audio book in the world, Audible, a subsidiary of Amazon, wrote on its French website: “At the start, audio books used vocal synthesis, that is to say a voice generated by computer. Today, human voice is privileged, because it allows greater proximity to the reader, more heat and better intonation. ” Four years later, the research “Virtual Voice” (“artificial voice”) in its English -speaking catalog gives “more than 50,000 [littérature] audio books human voice: results”. The vast majority of securities are signed by little or not known authors.

The quality of this reading leaves contrasting assessments. sometimes enthusiastic about the rapid progress of this technology, sometimes skeptical about its limitations. “I do not think that the narration by IA is good with the emotions of the characters. alas,” commented on X Alisanya, an English -speaking author of fantasy novels self -published on Amazon. An opinion already shared in 2023 by Tania Eby. who has posed her voice on texts for more than twenty years full -time. Who added: “Over time, listeners may get used to it. I think it’s happening. ” “It seems logical that artificial intelligence is affecting us,” said this direct witness to the slowdown in his activity. “I think this is the plan for the future: replace employees in order to cut costs.”

Summary [littérature] audio books human voice: voices never flout and make fewer and fewer errors in pronouncing proper names. Inside a sentence, they have modulations. But on the length they can become monotonous: they do not know (yet) accelerate. slow down, go up or down the intensity, annoy, strangle, run out of steam.