AI voices are getting very good. I was following a Youtube channel that does mini retrospectives of old Sci fi movies and TV series. I was enjoying them except that the narrator sounded... off... is the best I can put it, and only sometimes. I began to realize (especially when I noticed he was cranking out several of these a week) that the narrator was an AI reading a script.

I first noticed it in his Space: 1999 episode. The only giveaway... but it became very annoying... was the excessively long pause whenever he said "Space...... 1999". Seems like sometimes he left the colon between the two and the AI would add a very long pause. It was driving me batty by the end.

The most egregious was his Forbidden Planet episode, and that one convinced me it was an AI. The narrator kept pronouncing "id" (as in the line "monsters from the id') as "I. D.". He apparently realized this at some point and tried to change the phonetic spelling in order force it to say it right, but if you think about it, there actually is no way to phonetically spell "id'. It basically is it's own phonetic, and if the AI interprets it as initials, it's a losing battle. By the end of the video he apparently tried the spelling "eid" but the AI just said "E. I. D.'.

I finally unsubscribed because, much as I liked his writing, once I became aware it was an AI, the AI voice became annoying with it's rare awkward pauses and inflections. But I have to say, it's a very good AI voice.

Here's the Forbidden Planet episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVw8e6B8aCo

Zerg wrote on Mar 12, 2025, 06:08:
I wonder, let's say that it really all is pitch shifting, frequency changes and other effects.

If a person would do that manually, what that be okay...? Is it only not OK because AI is in use instead of an unpaid intern who still believes that hard work = success before their dreams are crushed?

I suppose the question is how good this voice generation is. If it's on par with a person adjusting a couple of sliders in Audacity then I do not see the problem. However, if they used AI to generate more character voices using this one person's voice then I don't feel that's right.

I was thinking the same thing. how is this different then a vocoder.

Jim wrote on Mar 11, 2025, 20:56:
$100 for 4000 lines? that is someone reading a 100 page book. Something is not adding up. As for the indie studio, does not sound like they have a budget for voice actors, but changing the sound of those recorded lines into different people... sounds shady as hell

I wonder if the pay the developers the same for 4000 lines of code. I mean the AI can do it and all anyways.

I wonder, let's say that it really all is pitch shifting, frequency changes and other effects.

If a person would do that manually, what that be okay...? Is it only not OK because AI is in use instead of an unpaid intern who still believes that hard work = success before their dreams are crushed?

I suppose the question is how good this voice generation is. If it's on par with a person adjusting a couple of sliders in Audacity then I do not see the problem. However, if they used AI to generate more character voices using this one person's voice then I don't feel that's right.

Clicking ignore on Steam for this game. Which makes me wonder if the developers get notifications when a game is ignored? I know devz get updates when a game is wishlisted.

I find this [CENSORED].

$100 for 4000 lines? that is someone reading a 100 page book. Something is not adding up. As for the indie studio, does not sound like they have a budget for voice actors, but changing the sound of those recorded lines into different people... sounds shady as hell