Artificial voices generated from text. The future of video narration?

[Happy Daze]

I recently signed up to a cheap online service which allows me to generate unlimited voices from text and use them in videos for a one off fee.

The package that I purchased has 30 voices available and all but about 4 voices are fairly naff. There is one female voice in particular that is actually quite decent, but it still has many limitations.

With progress in this technology I can see that narration for film, videos and books, will possibly negate the need for human presenters. There is already technologies where you can train software using your own, or some other voice. With some improvements in inflections I'm sure that the use of these artificial voices may become more widespread.

What do you think? Is this good or bad? Do you know of a service that currently has this nailed?

I produced a short video (a review of a polarising filter from Amazon Basics) to test the water, this uses a couple of the voices that I have available to me. The female voice is much nicer than the male voice, see what you think. I won't be using this in all of my videos but I think the female voice will feature occasionally.

https://youtu.be/q9NceQBXa1s

[fuzzynormal]

Not a fan.

But I'm in the "not the way it used be!" phase of my career.

[billdoubleu]

There's a bit of controversy surrounding this topic in regards to the new Anthony Bourdain documentary. Not being a random voice, but, the voice of an actual person.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2021-07-26/la-et-anthony-bourdain-deepfake-ai-voice-documentary-audio-cgi

I think these AI voice techniques will become common place much sooner than later. Similar to how AutoTune has tarnished the perceived artistry of a well executed vocal performance, this will degrade the sense of comfort and companionship a great voiceover performance provides.

[leslie]

i think, make art now. has an interesting interpretation of adding an ai voice to his vlogs. How much is orchestrated and how much is  ai i dont know. but i do enjoy his efforts. On the other hand... most robot voices just completely ruin it for me. I guess its early days for this kinda stuff.  Its a powerful tool for some poor sod, thats born a mute however. I seriously doubt my voice will ever win any awards Still i'd rather use it than some robot plugin thingy. At this point of the game i think we should be embracing how someone can add to the mix rather than cutting some one out of it.  

[JordanWright]

Which service do you use?

[Matins 2]

I know of no service that has 'nailed it'. I don't think any service will anytime soon. What's really missing is situational awareness. These services make no distinction between the word "look" directed to multiple people from a distance, or "look" in a one-to-one story in a living room.

[Emanuel]

A bless for producers and creators in general other than those who make it for a living ;- )

[scotchtape]

They sound convincing for the first few seconds then you can totally tell it's AI, it's like those stupid review videos on YT that are literally a voicebot reading promo text.

This one sounded a bit better.  I think if it improves more it will be a useful tool in adding voice overs, and I think it's a good thing if anything.  Especially if you're making a video in a language that's not your first, or if you're not comfortable using your own voice, or even if you just don't want to put the time and effort into actually doing a VO.  

Another use case is in an interview clip if you need to have a voice over with the question that you didn't pick up, etc... could be really great.

[JurijTurnsek]

Paired with Deepfakes, this will be a disaster for humanity. People's opinions are already very easily swayed by so many crappily-produced videos, that this technique will probably be outlawed before it reaches maturity.

[independent]

Outlawed? Good luck with regulation!

A more likely solution would be a combination of a few things:

• Platform verification and monitoring (Twitter does a good job)
• NFTs to secure authorship
• Education. Younger generations grow up w/ digital tech and are much more perceptive and discriminating. The gullible boomers are on the wrong side of disruptive technologies, but this too shall pass

Anyways, there's also a creative and productive element. Why can't a creator choose to express in a different voice? 

[Emanuel]

Anyone has experience with this one here?

https://speechelo.com

[IronFilm]

AI video just keeps on getting better and better:

 

The video to video feature is especially interesting, I could imagine a very rough video being made cheaply, then being heavily stylized to create a much more polished output for use in an advert.  

A longer look at AI tools for video: 

 

[kaylee]

@IronFilm this stuff is so rad. im nerding tf out watching ai videos on youtube lol. i wanna learn this stuff!

it really does change everything. thats no hype. in a few years, the ai tools will allow ppl like me to make motion pictures that would have cost millions and millions. im legit excited

and mind you, this is in a world where i see most movie cgi as being awful. this is not that. its totally different

ofc its EXTREMELY bad for jobs, humanity, etc. but its good for me as an artist lol

elon: ai will destroy humanity soon

also elon: *builds ai*

 

[kye]

I can't remember where I heard it, but apparently there are already some YT channels where the presenter is AI generated and so are the scripts.  The person indicated that these were successful channels and that no-one had any idea.

I don't know any more details, or if this is true, but it soon will be.

[kye]

Thinking about this a little further, this won't change much at all.

The problem with CGI people is that they're fake..........  but so are a vast number of influencers so no change there.

The other problem with AI-generated scripts is that AI tends to "hallucinate" and be factually incorrect as well as potentially getting into the realms of bigotry..........  but so are a vast number of influencers so no change there either.

TBH this is true of lots of traditional media too.  Keeping Up With the Real-Life Leave-It-To-Beavers of Beverly Hills Who Wants A Wife was actually more typical of TV rather than an exception.  

It was blogging and then vlogging that actually started the trend of being authentic - TV and film never did it.

[kaylee]

On 5/17/2023 at 6:37 PM, kye said:

bigotry

adobe firefly wont let me type 'maine coon'. ty for protecting us

[kye]

5 hours ago, kaylee said:

adobe firefly wont let me type 'maine coon'. ty for protecting us

Yeah, like early internet filters protected people from learning about breast cancer, etc....  

What is new is stupid, like how what is old was stupid when it was new 🙂 

[kaylee]

yeah to be fair firefly wont let you use the name of anyone in the public eye as far as i know... 

i love all this new ai stuff tho, several good twitter account to follow for updates if any of u guys are into that

generative fill in photoshop is gonna be awesome... but imagine when we have tools like this in AE, or premiere...!

in a few years ai will completely change the vfx industry

[Emanuel]

And finance too, they will earn money for the humankind...

[IronFilm]

On 5/28/2023 at 3:18 PM, Emanuel said:

And finance too, they will earn money for the humankind...

A friend is currently writing an AI trading bot. 

(one of zillions of such people trying to do this I am sure)