With the encroachment of synthesised and AI voices, it's becoming increasingly important to tell your story in a way that connects. 

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What many fail to realise, is that by holding back budget and opting for a synthesised voice, they're actually throwing money away and hurting themselves.

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Let me explain.

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While it's true that many artificial voices lack the nuance of a human. They don't connect, cannot connect and will never connect.

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Why?

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The imperfections.

 

This actually requires some understanding of the technology involved in creating these models.

 

Machine learning is the branch of computer science that has emerged in recent years which is used to collect data, train a model and then produce the best approximation of a result based on a prompt. 

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This is why AI art can look good upon immediate inspection, but once you zoom in, things fall apart quickly.

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Six fingers instead of five.

Completely unintelligible text. 

A house with squashed staircases that would be impossible to walk up.

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Similarly, human speech cannot be approximated. 

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The specific subtleties in human speech are loaded with meaning, context and purpose and are impossible to replicate precisely.

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Happiness isn't just a smile, but an increase in the dynamics of one's speech. 

Excitement isn't just loud, but can lead to speeding up and slowing down.

Sadness isn't just a quiet voice, but has pauses, and hesitation. One might tremble.

 

These emotions also come from dramatically different places depending on the purpose. 

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Happiness is your child graduating from high school. Or when your dog runs to hump your leg after you're back from a long day of work (I don't judge).

Excitement is landing that new job (I know that feeling very well), or the shaking sensation an unknown new location.

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Are you talking to a person? People? Your loved one? Your neighbour? These distinctions change the voice over into something entirely unique.

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Maybe the next generation AI voice will sound so convincing that people will think it's a human. 

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It still doesn't matter.

 

The reason for hiring a real voice actor isn't just the tone of our voice, but the intent behind the words which tell a real different story people can relate to.

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