[low_tech_love]

I am an avid consumer of audiobooks and I will never pay/listen to anything AI-generated. Maybe it's just me, I don't know, but just because they have shown that it is technically feasible, that doesn't mean that there is a market for it. I am skeptical. Listening to audiobooks is already a compromise over reading the book, listening to an AI-generated audiobook sounds to me like a bit too much. But let's see.

[hedora]

Check out audio fiction podcasts. Some do full productions of short stories. Depending on the work, reading the text is a compromise over listening to the reading. For instance, music is extremely important to these two stories by Aliya Whiteley:

https://www.drabblecast.org/2007/12/20/drabblecast-43-jelly-...

Warning: the above has mild language and adult themes.

https://www.drabblecast.org/2010/07/27/drabblecast-173-go-be...

[atrus]

You'll never pay/listen to anything you're able to identify as AI-generated.

[ghaff]

Obviously there are lots of short snippets of audio that are machine generated. But, no, at the current state of the art I'm not going to listen to a machine generated audiobook much less pay for it.

[prepend]

It’s not for you, it’s for the millions/billions not currently listening to audiobooks.

This reminds me of the “I’ll never listen to mp3, I love my <whatever>.” The goal wasn’t to convince existing people but to expand to new people.

[freedomben]

I would agree but there is one big exception: books I really want to read but there's no audiobook version.

I have a particular interest in early Mormon history and the history of the western US, and there are some really great books that aren't available as audio. I ended up generating some with aws and while the voice annoyed me, I was willing to do it, and the cost was much higher than a normal audiobook would cost.

I think in reality, the more popular books will get a pro reading, but as long as it's labeled, there will be a market for ai audiobooks.