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Synthetic voices have been proliferating for years, and the generative AI boom of the new ’20s has sped that process right along. AI voices are everywhere—in podcasts, in political campaigns, and in chatbots where they maybe-not-so-subtly replicate celebrity voices. Soon, they’ll be all up in your audiobooks too.
Audible, the Amazon-owned audiobook company, announced a trial program for generating AI voice clones to read works in its audiobook marketplace. The announcement came via a post in ACX—Audiobook Creation Exchange—Audible’s service that lets authors and publishers turn written books into audiobooks.
“We're taking measured steps to test new technologies to help expand our catalog,” says the post, “and this week we are inviting a small group of narrators to participate in a US-only beta enabling them to create and monetize replicas of their own voices using AI-generated speech technology.”
Audible says both the narrators and authors will have control over which projects their AI voices are used for and that final narrations will be reviewed as part of ACX’s production process to check for mispronunciations or other errors.
Still, this might seem a tad incongruous with Audible’s current approach to narrated audiobooks, given that even after this announcement, ACX’s submission requirements still say that audiobook narrations, “must be narrated by a human.” But Amazon has already been bullish on AI, and implemented a similar AI audio program for its Kindle direct publishing operation last year.
Right now the Audible program is limited, with a select group of narrators participating. But it’s easy to see where this could go from here, and soon Audible could be opened up to let any author capable of generating an AI voice that can read their own book. Other companies are playing in this space as well; the startup Rebind is enlisting authors to allow their voices to be cloned so an AI version of them can “guide” readers through their texts. Fans of audiobooks are on the fence about all of it.
Personally, I cannot wait until these dulcet yet uncanny voices fall into the hands of the dinosaur eroticists.
Here’s some other consumer tech news from this week.
Papers, Please
Google is letting users digitize even more of their personal information. Up next: passports.
Google added digital drivers’ licenses to its Wallet platform last year, enabling Android users to store identification details on their phones. Soon (Google doesn’t say exactly when) users will be able to do the same with their US passports.
There are some caveats, of course. A Google Wallet version of your passport will be accepted only at specific TSA checkpoints where digital IDs are allowed. (Here’s a map.) Also, Google makes sure to recommend that you keep your passport on hand anyway. Digital IDs aren’t typically accepted anywhere outside of airports, so if you get into a pinch while abroad you’ll want to have your physical documentation. But for a lucky subset of travelers, this will solve the problem of needing to take yet another thing out of your bag when going through airport security.
Keepin’ Tabs
Hey speaking of Google, the company also announced some good news for all of us filthy browser tab hoarders. Tab grouping is a feature in Google Chrome that lets you squirrel away all your browser tabs under group folders for easier sorting. (I’ll read them later, I swear!) Google says its grouping feature will soon be made to sync across platforms. That means you can seamlessly continue your desktop browsing journey on your mobile device, where you will definitely not just continue ignoring them.
Tab grouping will also soon be available on Chrome in iOS, and should be able to sync across desktops as well. How soon is all this coming? Well, again Google wasn’t quite clear about that. Regardless, better start collecting all those browser tabs now. Never know when you might need them again.
Menlo-Upon-Tyne
Meta—the Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp company that also does AI—has announced that its AI services are set to colonize a new cultural realm: the Brits. Meta announced it will be training its AI models off data from the users of its platforms in the UK.
Specifically, the data will be collected from anyone who uses Facebook or Instagram in the UK, and then used to train Meta’s AI accordingly. In its announcement, Meta says it hopes this move will help its AI tools more accurately reflect British culture and speech.
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Meta says UK users will receive a notification informing them of the change, and it will be possible for them to opt out of the data collection by filling out a form (or just getting off Facebook and Instagram). The policy is sure to raise alarms among regulators and privacy advocates in the UK; both have already expressed concerns about this plan.
The news comes ahead of Meta Connect, the company’s product showcase and developer gathering that is scheduled for September 25 and 26. It’s not certain what the company will announce then, but perhaps we can expect at least a few more British accents in the metaverse.
An Apple a Day
Apple events are always a whole thing. Well, a bunch of whole things all at once, really. This week, Apple announced the many details of its new iPhones, Apple Watch, and AirPods that can now double as hearing aids. It also regaled viewers with many of the same Apple Intelligence features it announced in June at its WWDC event but have yet to be released. All the same, Apple is very hopeful that its generative-AI-based tools will drive a bunch of demand for its new devices.
This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED reviews editors Adrienne So and Julian Chokkattu join the show to dish about their time at Apple’s headquarters and all the new hardware and software goodies the company trotted out.
