It’s the time of year when new news starts to dry up, especially in an industry like ours that shifts focus to best-of lists, stocking fillers, and resolutions. However, the ever-present shadow of AI remains, this time with significant developments in AI narration. A few days ago, the audiobook industry introduced new guidelines to label AI-narrated audiobooks, following similar steps taken by the advertising and food industries to provide greater transparency to consumers.
ALLi News Editor, Dan Holloway
The U.S.-based Audiobook Publishers Association and the UK’s Audio Publishing Group have issued a guide for the industry on how to let audiobook-buying emptors go in fully caveated.
New Guidelines for Audiobooks
Porter Anderson’s coverage of the story is incredibly detailed, and I heartily recommend you read it along with the guidelines themselves, which, according to the producers, “aim to promote consistency across the industry to give consumers clear information and allow them to make informed choices when purchasing audiobooks.” But here are the main points:
- First, and most important, the guidelines are just that: guidelines. They are not intended to be binding and do not amount to regulation.
- Second, they distinguish two types of AI: AI Voice and Authorized Voice Replica. The latter would be, for example, an attempt to recreate the voice of a deceased author based on training with real samples.
Metadata and YouTube’s AI Tool
The recommendation is that the name used by the AI and the type of AI voice be listed in a book’s metadata under the heading of narrator or reader. The guidelines explain how both publishers (using ONIX) and retailers should most clearly provide this information.
Interestingly, this comes as YouTube, an increasingly popular source of audiobooks for readers, has started testing a tool that allows creators to use AI to generate content with their likeness. This would clearly fall into the Authorized Voice Replica category, which may become increasingly widespread.
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