Winter and AI

            Ugh. I’d forgotten what it was like. I’m not sorry I had a hiatus, either. And while I realize learning is a part of life, I do a pretty darn good job avoiding the new skills that will really bend me out of shape in order to complete them. Truthfully, I’d been getting prompted to do exactly what I’m doing right now, I just absolutely avoided it. You know how God is. Once He’s got a good idea, He’ll beat you with it until suddenly you’ve convinced yourself it was your idea from the start.

            I’m a journalist. I’ve made my meager means with words and lines accompanied by photos of photos. I’ve gotten good at it. Thanks to a few desperate editors who let me learn on the end of a tether line so they could jerk me sideways, or over backwards if necessary, until I could be trusted to turn in worthy pieces. Each day I see it, so do you, the impending threat that soon AI will take over my position as word smith and story teller. Now, I’m not here to lay my thoughts on the subject- you get enough mind manipulation just trying to check the weather each morning. But I can say one thing; nobody said old school was gonna be easy.

            I keep writing my own thoughts, opinions and stories. I’m not too sure I trust AI to effectively tell the story of the human experience just yet. Or, personally, not sure I ever will, I don’t care what Chat GPT tells you of itself when you ask. I can’t even trust a phone to put together a decent slide show of pictures for a year in review. Amongst happy pictures of family events and vacations it decided to sprinkle in a few pictures of dead cattle at the feedlot. Nothing says Happy New Year like dead cattle.

            So what is it I’m learning? My endeavors have forced me to attempt the world of Audible. Nothing gets you into trouble quite like a supportive group of friends who like your reading voice. I don’t possess a real large tool box, and my skillset does revolve around words, writing, and most importantly, reading. To the extent I’ve promised myself if I ever go blind I’ll pick up the torch and learn to read braille. Rosie, my daughter, thinks I should make a preemptive strike and learn it now. I put it on the to-do list right behind Audible.

            With Kindle formatting what it is now, thanks to AI- a quick pause to offer a sarcastic wink ‘n nod to our artificial counterpart- it is entirely possible to write, edit, publish, and then, launch an Audible book from one site. So, with my recent release of Wild Lament, I thought I’d just go ahead and give the Audible thing a try… And yes, it was crisp and clear. Not a single back ground noise to find. Not a single lip lickin’, dog barkin’, kid hollerin’ sound to be found. No clicks or pops to mar the flat, inflection-less master piece I’d written for the trash can. Upon further inspection, I found you can edit inflection. I was ten pages in over the course of three weeks and hadn’t done anything but try to pick from forty voice options, then had a cyber punch- fight over inflections and pauses.

I hadn’t even gotten to the good stuff in the story yet.

            As a comical side note, I did have a rather good laugh multiple times at the thought of my colleagues out there trying to put a good ol’ fashioned romancer on Audible with AI. I think I’ve got problems trying to make AI sound authentic; all I could think of was R2D2 sliding his metal hand up someone’s thigh…

            With that image making you seriously consider abandoning this blog, I’ll continue in another direction. During this cyber battle for inflection dominance, I just happened to take my turn reading scripture in church one Sunday. A friend in the audience approached me afterwards and asked if I’d ever thought of recording my own novels. It was one of those well-placed comments that made me stop and think. I had considered it. Many times, in fact.

            Somehow now, though, I was putting the idea into serious consideration.

            I read a post by Matt Walsh on the dangers of AI. I won’t terrify you with the details, but it was a call to arms to defend our artistic spaces from the coming onslaught of artificial everything. I’d already come this conclusion as it is my own niche that is going to be the first to capitulate to ChatGPT. Why pay staff writers when Chat does it for free? While I realize doing everything myself will take a ridiculous amount of work on my behalf, at least my readers can be assured they’ll get the solid sound of a dog or hoot owl in my recordings. That might really be worth something in twenty years.

In fact, after the initial fanaticism fades from the ease of use AI generates, I’ll guarantee you Kindle Create will be offering actual sound options you can paste into your AI Audible recordings so your listener can be lured into thinking the recording is real. For in truth, I think the human soul will crave something real. Or, perhaps, we’ll progress into a new kind of entertainment that involves buying tickets to hear me read my novels in auditoriums in real time. A “News of the World” kind of thing.

While I have no idea where this thing is heading, I guess I’m just not too worried about it. Man is a clever beast, and as ChatGPT takes my niche, I’ll just find a new one. While Audible cranks out hundreds of new books a month through AI generated voices, I’m converting the camper compartment of my living quarters horse trailer to a sound booth. It won’t be as easy as clicking a button and letting a computer with a shoddy Australian accent narrate one of my American western novels, trucking it out to my trailer in the early morning bitter cold all winter will, in the end, be a more rewarding experience for both myself and my treasured listeners.

And for pity sake- I’m at least intelligent enough to know where the darn inflections belong as I read.

Lyn