Google offers free AI-powered audiobook narration

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Last night, Google sent me a message that I could have one of its virtual AI-powered voices record my audiobooks for me.

I wrote an article about for MetaStellar here: Google offers free AI-powered audiobook narration.

(AI-generated illustration based on image via Pixabay.)

You can edit the finished file to fix pronunciation mistakes and then download the audiobook file and use it anywhere you want — you own it.

I’ve long been interested in AI-powered voices for OpenSim NPCs. This isn’t quite the same thing. But I can see grid owners who want to have audiobook areas — where you can sit in a nice place and listen to an audiobook — that this is a way to do it. Say, you have a collection of stories set in your virtual world. You can have a display, or an avatar, read them out loud to you.

Google also has an API — an online service that reads any text with an AI voice. You can use this service to have a computer program turn any text into speech. Say, for example, to power an NPC’s voice. But using it requires programming skills — and it costs money.

It would be cool if a grid owner or a hosting company offered a text-to-speech service for in-world NPCs as an add-on feature for organizations that rent land from them.

Is anyone out there doing anything like that? Let me know!

 

Maria Korolov
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