Fear not, AI voices are not going to replace your authentic human voice.
The rise of tech start-ups offering cheap, ready-made synthetic voice overs has grown rapidly in recent years. Many claim their ‘instant access voices’ sound almost identical to human voices.
At Voquent, we work with thousands of professional voice actors who rely on voice over work for a significant part of their income. With AI technology already affecting other industries, it’s understandable that many are worried about the future of their profession.
Will there be a point where AI voice overs significantly impact the voice-over industry? Let’s explore what’s happening and put it into perspective.
Where it all started
AI voices have roots going back to 1928 when Bell Labs engineer Homer Dudley began developing the first vocoder, leading to the creation of many “robot voices” used in music, TV, and movies.
Douglas Rain’s portrayal of the HAL 9000 computer in the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey was the first major instance of an AI voice mimicking human speech patterns for a wide audience.
Speech synthesis has been part of everyday life for over 40 years, with the most recent examples being Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa.
Currently, billions have been spent investing into AI replica’s of human voices – oh, the humanity!
What is happening now?
AI represents the fastest growing and the most important strand of technological development of recent generations. Naturally, this includes an ever-expanding variety of uses for synthetic AI voices.
Now, many small, independent developers are jumping onto the Text-to-Speech (TTS) bandwagon, harvesting large databases and libraries of spoken audio in an attempt to create a more human-sounding voice emulator to build a passive income stream.
A quick Google search will show many companies claiming to provide fully synthetic and apparently authentic-sounding TTS voice-over services that they claim are indistinguishable from actual, human voices.
Are these claims to be believed?
While it’s true that some companies have achieved relatively impressive results with a limited selection of synthetic voices, it is the inability of the AI voice to understand the purpose or meaning of a script that cripples widespread adoption.
They cannot get excited or show empathy and they do not have real emotion.
Think about it – in just a few seconds of natural human speech, you listen to a voice influenced by the lifelong journeys and travels of that person’s life. Isn’t that incredible?
So, using the banal tones of a machine-generated voice is a sure-fire way to foster disengagement from your audience in the same way that audiences can subconsciously switch off to background noise (such as the radio).
AI voices do not carry the influence of distinct regional accents, nor can they carry the weight of real-world experiences that bridge the narrator’s emotions with the audience.
How are AI voices creating opportunities when they are designed to replace human voices?
What many expert voice actors we speak to do not realise is that AI voices are currently generating an insatiable appetite for real, human voices that address both global and regional audiences. A new generation of content creators are starting out their first, amateur productions reluctantly using AI voices to get started.
The need for businesses of all types to wield language, experience, and accents to connect to their consumers, customers, and viewers increases exponentially alongside the global adoption of mobile technology and video sharing platforms.
Cheap sounding AI voice-overs create an inevitable need for an authentic human voice replacement as soon as possible! And now there’s no reason not to; it is more affordable than ever.
You can easily hire less experienced voice actors relatively cheaply via a freelance marketplace or P2P (Pay-To-Play) site. However, it is often worth spending a bit more to obtain experienced voice-over talents. The higher the quality of the recording equipment and performance, the better it will be received by the audience.
Whatever the budget, though, any human voice will beat a synthetic one.
Will AI voice-overs ever challenge a human voices talent?
The human brain still contains vastly complex processing capabilities that exceed even the most powerful supercomputers on the planet when it comes to creative performances. The human species is probably more likely to render itself extinct long before it can accurately simulate the human brain.
As we’ve explored in previous articles about character voices and villains, there’s a lot of thought and planning that goes into the casting and performance of a professional voice-over. Leading performers and creators always want to ensure that their voices are unique and memorable.
An AI voice will, by definition, never be unique. Sure, Siri is a real voice and is unique to iPhones, but would you use Siri to provide the voice-over for your commercial?
AI voices provide a cheap way to get words read out loud, but this misses the point. The stilted cadence of a synthetic voice will probably never replace the natural rhythm of a human voice in our lifetime because the spoken word is much more than just a broadcast mechanism.
Voice-over is still, without question, art and will forever offer a deep and powerful connection to our hearts and minds.
Human voices are complex and amazing.
No single recording of the same human voice will ever be identical. This is especially obvious when listening to someone sing. And that is the point. There are always subtle inconsistencies in the vocal delivery of a script or song, whether they are unintended or not. This is what listeners embrace.
Realistically mimicking the charm of human imprecision remains an agonising and impossible challenge for any AI voice-over developer. It’s even difficult enough to get right with musical instruments, such as drums and strings, with far less variety than a human voice.
We love technology here at Voquent, and we are curious to watch how the practical uses and benefits of AI voice-overs expand.
Regardless of how realistic (or not) a synthetic voice sounds, the next progressive step is always to replace it with a human voice-over. This will, quite literally, breathe life into the product or message.
Right now, the voice talent options available to content creators on a global scale is incredibly diverse and exciting.
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