The Deletist

I found one audiobooks series that I enjoy, almost more than reading it. The reason for the enjoyment is the way the actor creates the characters. Each character has its own unique voice. Even from book to book, the protagonist has the same voice so there’s consistency in the series. During this particular story, one of the characters gets a broken nose. The actor adjusted the voice for this character to simulate a stuffed nose and pain.

I’ve read that one of the many uses for Artificial Intelligence (AI), could be to create audiobooks. Once recorded (i.e., the author or actor’s voice), the AI would be able to create new audiobooks using their likeness. Likely this would take a fraction of the cost and time. A real human would only be able to read for so many hours a day. Certain small sounds we make, such as throat clearing or sniffing, would require editing from the recording. AI would likely be able to create a new audio recording instantly without those human noises. However, would AI interpret the meaning properly to match voices to action?

I’m not an actor, but actors are skilled at creating new characters, sometimes simulating different accents, inflections, moods, and emotions all with their voices. If the AI was creating an artistic reading, how would it be able to create new characters? Especially if the voice and character was new. it was one that the actor being imitated, had never used before. Would the AI pick up on changes, like a broken nose, to adjust the voice to match the action?

This would require a subtle understanding and nuance that I’m not sure AI is capable of doing. In my opinion, this is a good thing. Part of what makes the arts exciting is the way they constantly change and evolve. I enjoy this actor’s ability to create characters with his voice and express the emotions of the action. The voices and characters are different in every book of the series, with the exception of the main character, who remains consistent.

Even if the audiobook was something without characters, i.e., an author reading non-fiction, there would still be inflection, emphasis, cadences and the general rhythm of one’s voice. I’m sure AI could do a reasonably good job, likely good enough that most people wouldn’t notice the difference, but we would lose something intangible.

I’ve always considered myself lucky because I grew up using analog technology before migrating to digital. I’ve watched the transition happen. Even though I am sometimes a bit resistant, or slow, to adapt to new digital technologies, I appreciate that I know and understand both styles. As an added bonus, I also realize the meaning and history of many well-known icons, relics from the analog world, that may not have much meaning to somebody younger.

Here are some examples, though recognizable to us as digital icons for actions or objects, they all come from the paper world.

The phone is a receiver from the old-fashioned style with the curly cord connecting it to the base, or early cordless models.

The diskette for “save” is from the era of floppy disks.

Paste is an icon of a clipboard, something most people rarely use.

A piece of paper symbolizes document, or file.

A paperclip indicates an attachment, presumably to represent how it clips two things together. However, in the digital world, this doesn’t work the same way.

Aside from understanding icons used throughout the digital world, there are other advantages to the analog world. Though I took it for granted growing up, when I created something, I knew it was unique. It was one-of-a-kind. This was both a benefit and a detriment. One the plus side, I felt confident I had total control over that one physical instance of my creation. This is important for something confidential or private. On the flip side, only having one instance isn’t good protection against disaster. What if there was a fire, flood, etc.? Or I lost it?

I was reminded of these things while watching Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning the other week. The movie starts, predictably enough, with the protagonist receiving a recorded message that self-destructs. However, the message was on an old-fashioned mini tape recorder, including a few sheets of paper. Naturally the whole thing self-destructed within seconds of being read.

But in the digital world, could one ever feel confident that self-destruction included every instance? Could one ever feel confident that only one instance existed? The great benefit of digital technology is that it’s so easy to replicate. However, this is also a detriment with confidential or private information. Or if you feel inclined to send a self-destructing message to someone. It better be programmed to self-destruct in multiple places.

As a hardcore Beethoven fan, I would personally feel gutted if some artificial intelligence (AI) churned out a “tenth” symphony in the same style. Beethoven had a unique talent and a distinct, yet recognizable style. For example, each of his nine symphonies are all incredibly different from each other. Yet each one is unmistakably identifiable as Beethoven. In this era of generative AI, is it possible that a machine could learn enough to compose like Beethoven? What would that say about the future of music? And more importantly, what would that mean for musicians and composers?

It’s curious to wonder what sort of skills we may be losing by incorporating AI more into our daily lives. For instance, will people still learn to compose music? Or will they instead invest their time in learning how to train, or program, a generative AI chatbot to compose something? With the latter approach, would a composer even need to learn how to play an instrument or read music?

These same questions are relevant in nearly every profession and art form. Even dancers, who need their bodies to perform, could have the choreography generated by AI. I’m sure in the future, AI will be powerful and accurate enough to simulate a dance performance without real people. Or maybe we’ll all just wear Augmented Reality glasses for the performance. There have been many headlines in the news lately about studios using AI to capture the likeness of an actor/actress and reuse his/her face in future productions.

I blogged about this issue a few weeks ago in “The End of Originality.” AI is good at summarizing and recreating, but can it innovate? And can it innovate as well, or better, than a human? Admittedly, our creations are based on our experiences. However, the interpretation and expression of our experiences is unique and offers limitless opportunities for innovation and originality. AI, by contrast, is trained and programmed to create based on what’s already available for consumption (i.e., the AI’s experiences). With so many people learning to use AI, we will definitely need to consider the ways in which we are being trained and reprogrammed.

Nobody will ever be able to compose exactly like Beethoven. And that’s a good thing, in my opinion.