While TTS has broad application, I am skeptical about Apple’s process being able to compete with the best narrators.
I have my biases. My wife and I have licenses to listen to about 500 Audible audio books and in the best of them I feel like I have a human to human relationship with the narrator that is similar to a relationship with the author.
I have mostly worked on deep learning projects over the last eight years, so I appreciate the tech as an engineering tool, but I think it is important to view tech as a servant to human experience.
Not every book can afford the best narrators. A good one charges somewhere in the ballpark of $300-500 a finished hour. So for an average novel that's like $3000-5000. Not all writers can afford that, so this is an cheaper alternative.
Best narrators? Agreed. But as someone who did some recording for a local radio station years ago, it’s an incredibly time-intensive project to record a book.
I have my biases. My wife and I have licenses to listen to about 500 Audible audio books and in the best of them I feel like I have a human to human relationship with the narrator that is similar to a relationship with the author.
I have mostly worked on deep learning projects over the last eight years, so I appreciate the tech as an engineering tool, but I think it is important to view tech as a servant to human experience.