HUMANITY’S LAST EARGASM: AUDIOBOOK NARRATORS BATTLE SOULLESS VOICE ROBOTS THAT CAN’T FAKE A DECENT CLIMAX
In what may be humanity’s final stand against the digital apocalypse, flesh-based audiobook narrators are clinging desperately to the one thing artificial intelligence apparently can’t replicate: a convincing f@#king orgasm.
“These digital voice boxes couldn’t seduce a desperate smartphone if they tried,” says Annabelle Tudor, a Melbourne audiobook narrator who still uses actual lungs to produce sound waves. “The average AI has the emotional range of a constipated accountant.”
SILICON VALLEY PROMISES “TOTALLY ADEQUATE” ROBOT VOICES
Tech companies, perpetually searching for ways to eliminate pesky humans and their annoying need for “compensation” and “bathroom breaks,” are ramping up efforts to replace narrators with algorithm-generated voices that sound almost, but not quite, entirely unlike anything you’d want whispering in your ear for eight hours.
“Our latest model is 97.8% indistinguishable from a human,” claims Dr. Reed Macheenly, Chief Dehumanization Officer at AudioDrone Inc. “The only glitches occur during emotional climaxes, death scenes, and any word containing more than three syllables.”
ACTUAL HUMANS FIGHT BACK WITH THEIR STUPID, INEFFICIENT EMOTIONS
Studies show that 99.2% of passages read by AI narrators sound like they’re being performed by someone who learned English yesterday and has never experienced joy, sorrow, or a meaningful human connection. The remaining 0.8% sound like your GPS having a stroke.
“You know what an AI can’t do?” asks veteran narrator Jim Billingsworth, vigorously shaking his fist at a nearby Alexa device. “It can’t pause because it’s genuinely overwhelmed with emotion. It doesn’t know that tiny intake of breath before delivering devastating news. And it sure as sh!t doesn’t know how to moan convincingly during the steamy parts.”
PUBLISHERS WEIGH COST SAVINGS AGAINST LISTENERS’ WILL TO LIVE
Publishing executives, those paragons of artistic integrity, are reportedly “extremely excited” about the prospect of paying exactly zero dollars for robot narrators that turn literary masterpieces into monotonous drivel.
“Look, humans are expensive and unpredictable,” explains Penelope Nickelsaver, VP of Human Replacement at BigText Publishing. “They demand ‘fair compensation’ and sometimes even get ‘sick.’ Our new digital narrators work 24/7 and don’t complain when we make them read 50 Shades knockoffs.”
Industry insiders estimate that replacing human narrators could save publishers upwards of $87 million annually, which they absolutely promise to pass on to consumers in the form of lower prices (and if you believe that, we have a bridge to sell you, narrator included).
EXPERTS WARN OF “AROUSAL UNCANNY VALLEY”
Professor Heywood Jablomi of the Institute for Digital Intimacy Studies warns that AI-narrated romantic scenes create what he calls the “arousal uncanny valley” – that disturbing space where something sounds almost human but just wrong enough to make your genitals want to retreat inside your body.
“We played test subjects an AI-narrated sex scene from a popular romance novel, and 78% reported feeling ‘deeply uncomfortable,’ ‘spiritually violated,’ or ‘like I’m being seduced by a sentient toaster,'” explains Jablomi.
THE FUTURE SOUNDS BORINGLY ADEQUATE
Despite the obvious limitations, tech companies remain committed to their quest to eliminate yet another field of human artistic expression.
“We’re making tremendous progress,” insists Alexa Johnson, spokesperson for AudioMind Technologies. “Our newest model can now simulate approximately 3.7 human emotions, including ‘mild contentment’ and ‘vague concern.'”
Meanwhile, Tudor and her fellow human narrators continue their quixotic fight against the inevitable tide of digital mediocrity.
“At the end of the day,” Tudor sighs, clutching her microphone like a talisman, “when you’re listening to someone describe their lover’s touch or the moment they discovered their child had died, do you really want that voice to belong to something that doesn’t know what it means to live, love, or lose?”
The answer, according to the profit-obsessed tech overlords driving this change, is apparently “Who gives a sh!t as long as it’s cheap?”
