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Generate audiobooks from E-books with Kokoro-82M

claudio.uk

211–220 of 255 posts

Re: Generate audiobooks from E-books with Kokoro-82M

#211

The quality is great (amazing even), but I can't listen to AI generated voices for more than 1 minute. I don't know why, I just don't like it. I immediately skip the video on youtube if the voice is AI generated. Might be because our brains try to 'feel' the speaker, the emotion, the pauses, the invisible smile, etc. No doubt models will improve and will be harder to identify as AI generated, but for now, as with dif…

For new generations/those coming up now this will be the norm and not generate the negative reaction is does for us, it will just be part of how the world is and has always been, and eventually we will be the minority.

Future generations will never know a world where you don't watch a 2 hour AI generated orientation video about the wonders of working for Generic Corp when you start a new job.

Re: Generate audiobooks from E-books with Kokoro-82M

#213

Soon, AI will flood the market with mediocre everything: books, audio books, art, movies, websites. The saddest thing is that people will still continue to participate in consuming these AI produced “goods”.

If there's one thing our capitalist society has taught me it's that people are always willing to endure a crappier product. I'm not sure we've found the bottom yet...

Re: Generate audiobooks from E-books with Kokoro-82M

#215
post #93
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most browsers support this already. Even maybe OS wide. I know it should work for Firefox on an article in reader mode. Or in MacOS you can select text and have it read out loud.

I'm using Firefox and I do not see this option. Probably not working on Linux?

You might need to install/setup Speech Dispatcher. I was just using this implementation with Piper: https://github.com/Elleo/pied?tab=readme-ov-file.

However easier way to read articles aloud is with Read Aloud extension: https://github.com/ken107/read-aloud.

Re: Generate audiobooks from E-books with Kokoro-82M

#216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many (most, if not all) hand-made copies contained errors, which printed books did not. They were much closer to 1:1 copies.

If the mistake happened in the typesetting stage, printed books could spread errors much more efficiently, as in the infamous "wicked bible" of 1631, where a typesetting error made the ten commandments contain the amusing phrase "Thou shalt commit adultery". Surviving copies are quite the collectors' item as most were destroyed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_Bible

Usually, though, errors are corrected and every every printing has fewer errors than the previous one.

Re: Generate audiobooks from E-books with Kokoro-82M

#217

On the one hand, this is very convenient. Probably cool for some non-fiction. On the other, some of my favorite audio books all stood out because the narrator was interpreting the text really well, for example by changing the pacing during chaotic moments. Or those audiobooks with multiple narrators and different voices for each character. Not to mention that sometimes the only cue you get for who's speaking during d…

Agree with you on this.

My example, I was never a Wheel of Time fan, but the new audio editions done by Rosamund Pike are quite the performance, and make me like the story. She brings all the characters to life in a way thats different than just reading. It's a true performance.

Re: Generate audiobooks from E-books with Kokoro-82M

#218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a big difference. Printing presses produce superior products. A mediocre audiobook is certainly better than no audiobook at all, but it is an inferior product to a well produced audiobook.

> Printing presses produce superior products. That seems like a highly dubitable statement. Many hand illuminated manuscripts are masterpieces of art. The advantage of the printing press was chiefly economical making the cost of a copy dramatically less, not an increase in quality (especially so by the aesthetical standards of the time).

As a work of art, sure. But as books containing information, printing presses produced superior products.

Re: Generate audiobooks from E-books with Kokoro-82M

#219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your point is a valid one, but I want to add to it that it is also a matter of expectations and how one listens. Years ago, when I was dating someone who spoke Russian as one of her native languages, we had to do a funny compromise when watching films together with her parents: they didn't speak a word of English, so we'd use the Russian dub with English subtitles. I noticed that the Russian dub was just one man read…

Here is the rest of that story. When the foreign movies started to filter into the Soviet Union's illegal movie theatres, you would get 3 or 4 movies playing at once in one room. There would be a TV in each corner of the room and 4 or 5 rows of plastic chairs in front of it in an arch. ALL of the movies were being revoiced by the same person. So, if you were sitting in the back of the 5th row, you were potentially ge…

Looking at the modern internet experience it sounds like the Soviet Union's illegial movie theatres were ahead of their time!

Re: Generate audiobooks from E-books with Kokoro-82M

#220

Soon, AI will flood the market with mediocre everything: books, audio books, art, movies, websites. The saddest thing is that people will still continue to participate in consuming these AI produced “goods”.

I think the saddest thing is that it's highly likely that real people will start to produce aesthetics that look/sound/etc like AI slop
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