Ah, I see what you’re saying, I misunderstood and thought you were taking about picking a different book. Indeed, for the worst case scenario a mediocre AI voice could be an improvement!

You seem to be implying that’s ridiculous, but it is indeed exactly like that, though it’s not like I’m expecting every performance to be a masterpiece.

It’s also pretty subjective, for example folks either seem to love or hate R. C. Bray. My mother can’t stand the guy’s style, I think he’s okay.

For now at least I bet this’ll be pretty mediocre. I’m a big audiobook fan and voice actors have a massive impact on the quality of the finished product. A great voice actor can make a mediocre book fun and engaging, a bad one can make a great book unlistenable. The best do great voice differentiation. As an example I’ve really enjoyed Andrea Parsneau’s work in The Wandering Inn series.

As someone who had a two month old in the PICU for a few days with RSV, this is great to hear. I wish it’d come a few years sooner for us. The little guy is fine now but it was terrifying at the time.

This vaguely reminds me of the song Fish Sticks by The Heligoats:

You were baptized in a river

I was thrown off a bridge

Then I landed on a crab you slept with seahorses

I started having seizures, you started having kids

You found your inner self, I found my inner fish

Thought exactly this when I read the headline.

All I can think of is this scene from the Rejected cartoon.

Here’s some AI slop to definitely explain this in a coherent way.