I am sure that any of you who have profiles on Findaway Voices will be as appalled by the news that DeepZen (a British Company) has, in partnership with Findaway, brought the AI narrated audiobook a step closer, The first voice synthesised audiobooks were due to be proudly launched at The London Book Fair (which was cancelled), but they are now out there as the press release ‘The Future of Audiobooks is AI’ proudly boasts.

These first publications are not truly AI, buy synthesised voices – whether harvested from unwitting narrators who have no idea that their voices have been stolen, or from people who have actually given permission, I have no idea, but either way, particularly at this moment, when studios have been forced to close and the industry is struggling to bring books to audio under social distancing rules, this development is doubly worrying.  I sincerely hope Equity and ACA will contact Findaway to express their concern.

I have written to Findaway asking them to remove my profile from their website with immediate effect – and urge others to do the same.

https://literallypublicrelations.wordpress.com/2020/03/02/the-future-of-audiobooks-is-ai/

Helen.