[reustle]

I think calling this art is a stretch, as they usually aren’t the author.

By automating it, it lowers the barrier to access this type of audio content for the masses. If you want to choose to pay someone you read something for you, the market allows that. This feels like a net gain.

[haswell]

> I think calling this art is a stretch, as they usually aren’t the author.

I can't even remotely agree.

Narrating a book is absolutely an art. Listen to a book narrated by Stephen Fry, and all other books will sound awful. Considerable care and craft goes into a well-read book.

But this is why I'm actually excited about good TTS tools. Not because I want to displace Stephen Fry, but because there are so many books read by awful narrators and something like ElevenReader would be a huge step up in quality.

I share the parent commenter's concerns about the displacement of artists, but I'm less convinced that TTS tools are a net negative.

[darkwater]

If the AI content is good enough, nobody will use it, or at least not in the numbers that Audible et similia had before. It will just be a tiny minority following their principles.

We lived this already with social networks. Initially us tech enthusiasts were all like "it will democratize access to news, it democratize producing the news! curated work will still be there, it's a net gain". And we all saw how it actually developed. As someone on the Internet said, I want AI to do my laundry and repeating task so I can do art or other more interesting things, I don't want AI to do arts and force me to do laundry by hand because due to AI taking my job now I don't have money to pay for a washing machine.

[noizejoy]

> I think calling this art is a stretch, as they usually aren’t the author.

So I guess in your worldview a concert violinist also doesn’t make art, when they are playing a Mozart composition?