I listen to a number of podcasts which are reading books, stories, literature, etc. Having a professional actor read a text has appeal (e.g., Selected Shorts), but many are less-than-professional. A sufficiently-competent automated text-to-speech would fit at least some roles.
There are a few podcasts for which I'd have greater interest if the narration were by someone other than the current host....
There are also services such as the National Library for the Blind (UK) and BARD (US) which provide books, including a large number of audiobooks, for the blind. Automated text-to-speech would make a vastly larger library available, particularly of very recent publications, niche publications, and long-since-out-of-print books. Such services do take requests, but tend to focus on works published within the past five years.
I read the first of The Three Body Problem trilogy in print, and then listened to audiobook versions of the second & third books. Only they weren't audiobooks. I downloaded PDFs and then used a mobile app (Librera, I believe) to "read" them to me while I exercised. The benefit is that it allows arbitrary text to be converted to audio, but the downside is that it's only able to use your device's TTS voices, and there aren't any AI smarts built-in, so it was like listening to the Google Assistant read an audiobook. It got the job done, but now I have a somewhat visceral reaction to that Assistant voice having associated it with Chinese sci-fi for several weeks.
Something better would be very much appreciated. It's still not a replacement for high quality, professionally narrated audiobooks, but -- like you said, it's not just books that I'd like to consume this way.
Those are some good use cases. I only really listen to full-length audiobooks and not podcasts. An AI voice is probably sufficient, especially for niche content, but I would MUCH rather listen to a book narrated by a human. There are nuances to pacing, tone, and voice that I don't think AI will ever be able to fully grasp.
I listened to a lot of current AI „podcasting“ tools and wh ok me the voice is 95% perfect it does have its issues:
- suddenly speeding up or slowing down
- mispronunciation of non-standard words
- weird pauses
Having listened to a great many podcasts and interviews ... these are all very much problems with human-embodied voices as well.
(The number of SV types who talk as if they're on coke / meth / speed is ... nuts. A certain A-Z lead character comes to mind. Piketty is another. It'd be less problematic if they weren't constantly tripping over their own words, but they are.)
Throughout the piece, the narrator reads "ordnance" as "ordnances" (the word is both singular and plural), some awkward emphasis within phrases, and odd pronunciations ("malevolent" stands out). On the other hand, her pronunciation and accent of German words and place-names is excellent.
"Selected Shorts" is up there. My principle complaint is that episodes remain live for only a month or so. If you happen to catch an episode you like you'll have to keep it downloaded. All but certainly on account of copyright.
Various non-English pods as well, to maintain / increase fluency. Germany has a good set via Deutschlandfunk. I've found a few in other languages, though tending toward advertising-supported, which is less than ideal.
Searching for stories, literature, childrens' stories (a surprisingly good way to learn basic vocabulary, grammar, and culture), and history in your target language of choice tends to be a pretty good guide.
There are a few podcasts for which I'd have greater interest if the narration were by someone other than the current host....
There are also services such as the National Library for the Blind (UK) and BARD (US) which provide books, including a large number of audiobooks, for the blind. Automated text-to-speech would make a vastly larger library available, particularly of very recent publications, niche publications, and long-since-out-of-print books. Such services do take requests, but tend to focus on works published within the past five years.