All of the AI hot takes are about artists and writers losing work to the bots, but I read yesterday that Apple has very, very quietly released a series of audiobooks narrated by ‘digital voices’.

They’re not easy to find. There is no separate category. But you can track them down. They’re almost genre titles by small indie publishers.

Stuff like this.

And the narration is… weird. Not because it’s off, but because it’s not. Or at least it’s not noticeably off – unlike the voicework on this Frankenstein adaptation, which had a human narrator who does sound very bot-like. (The featured comments actually mention AI narration).

I’m not sure how I feel about this, which is weird because I’m very comfortable with AI writing tools. I think they’ll add to the process, not capture it.

But audiobook narration is so expensive that I could easily see this technology replacing humans.