To be frank I don’t have a clear threshold in mind, but some points we have in mind are:
We can narrate all posts on the Forum with AI for the same price as a few posts a week with professional human narrators
Most engagement on posts happens in the first few days of publishing (definitely within the first week), which makes coordination to publish a human narration tricky
We expect AI narration to get better and better—already we think Type 3 Audio’s service is better than the NonLinear service (my subjective opinion, and largely because Type 3 is just using newer APIs)
All these factors make the threshold pretty high to keep paying for human narration. That said, we can definitely support people who narrate their own posts to override AI narration.
We can narrate all posts on the Forum with AI for the same price as a few posts a week with professional human narrators
I assume that AI narration will converge to being close-to-costless at some point, so definitely that should be available. But these are not mutually exclusive—I think we should have some human narration; it need not be professional. People seem willing to record some stuff for free, and often do a decent job (or at least a job that I personally prefer to the AI, not all will though.)
Most engagement on posts happens in the first few days of publishing (definitely within the first week), which makes coordination to publish a human narration tricky
But
A. I’d rather us encourage longer more extended discussions and returning to the issues, rather than feel a rush to respond right away. Most posts are not time sensitive.
B. People get value from listening even if they don’t respond in a comment
We expect AI narration to get better and better—already we think Type 3 Audio’s service is better than the NonLinear service (my subjective opinion, and largely because Type 3 is just using newer APIs)
True. I assume it will get so good (and apps to enable text to speech) at some point that people do it all themselves, and curate it all the way they like. At that point the ‘human readings’ might still have a use, though, for people who really like the human touch (but I’m not sure).
All these factors make the threshold pretty high to keep paying for human narration. That said, we can definitely support people who narrate their own posts to override AI narration.
If cost of human narration is crowding out ‘much more AI narration’ than I would agree. But as AI narration becomes fairly costless than maybe it’s not a tradeoff.
I’d also suggest maybe supporting (i.e., hosting) narrators who do a decent job of narrating others’ posts as well.
I was fearing that.
How will you know whether the preference is strong enough to justify human narration?
To be frank I don’t have a clear threshold in mind, but some points we have in mind are:
We can narrate all posts on the Forum with AI for the same price as a few posts a week with professional human narrators
Most engagement on posts happens in the first few days of publishing (definitely within the first week), which makes coordination to publish a human narration tricky
We expect AI narration to get better and better—already we think Type 3 Audio’s service is better than the NonLinear service (my subjective opinion, and largely because Type 3 is just using newer APIs)
All these factors make the threshold pretty high to keep paying for human narration. That said, we can definitely support people who narrate their own posts to override AI narration.
Good points. Some counter-points:
I assume that AI narration will converge to being close-to-costless at some point, so definitely that should be available. But these are not mutually exclusive—I think we should have some human narration; it need not be professional. People seem willing to record some stuff for free, and often do a decent job (or at least a job that I personally prefer to the AI, not all will though.)
But A. I’d rather us encourage longer more extended discussions and returning to the issues, rather than feel a rush to respond right away. Most posts are not time sensitive.
B. People get value from listening even if they don’t respond in a comment
True. I assume it will get so good (and apps to enable text to speech) at some point that people do it all themselves, and curate it all the way they like. At that point the ‘human readings’ might still have a use, though, for people who really like the human touch (but I’m not sure).
If cost of human narration is crowding out ‘much more AI narration’ than I would agree. But as AI narration becomes fairly costless than maybe it’s not a tradeoff.
I’d also suggest maybe supporting (i.e., hosting) narrators who do a decent job of narrating others’ posts as well.
The ai voice is growing on me. I like that it announces indented lists etc. It’s nearly as comprehensible as a human, with only occasional glitches.
But I still find it less pleasant. Miss the human touch.
I think there should be a platform where humans can narrate this stuff.
I think that people like doing it (people even volunteer) and people like listening to it. So it’s win-win to keep such a platform open.