Would you let AI Michael Caine read you The Odyssey in a new audiobook?
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The 13-hour The Odyssey audiobook features an AI clone of actor Michael Caine’s voice and other AI voices from a library accumulated by ElevenLabs.
PHOTO: ELEVENLABS/X
Alexandra Alter
- Michael Caine’s AI voice narrates a new 13-hour audiobook of The Odyssey, created by ElevenLabs using AI clones and released free on their platform.
- The project aims to showcase AI’s creative potential and ties in with rising interest from Christopher Nolan’s upcoming film adaptation.
- Some experts and narrators worry AI voices lack emotional depth and may threaten human narrators’ jobs, while ElevenLabs says audiences will decide its acceptance.
AI generated
NEW YORK – In a new audiobook edition of The Odyssey, Homer’s nearly 3,000-year-old epic poem, the voice of British actor Michael Caine delivers the story’s soaring opening lines in his distinctive, gravelly staccato.
“Tell me, O Muse, of that sagacious man who, having overthrown the sacred town of Ilium, wandered far and visited the capitals of many nations, learnt the customs of their dwellers, and endured great suffering on the deep,” his voice intones over a soft, melancholy orchestral score.