Why can't I price my AI voiceover for less than $10?

[ag_vocalize]

I provide both professional voiceovers and AI voiceovers. (separate gigs)

I can choose $5 as the base price for my pro voiceover, but I cannot charge less than $10 for the AI voiceover.

Is anyone else experiencing this? If not, please share how I can price it at $5.

Thanks.

[ag_vocalize]

@vibronx I know! I was laughing all the way home. I can't believe the machine will make more. 😂

[mandyzines]

There are two interesting things here: 1) the deleted comment, and 2) why, if this is a new standard, it isn't the opposite--the human VO floor being $10.

[donnovan86]

14 minutes ago, mandyzines said:

the human VO floor being $10.

AI is a newer category so maybe they added this price limit because it's new, and they will eventually add price restrictions to the older categories. One can only hope. We'll see.

[ag_vocalize]

13 hours ago, mandyzines said:

There are two interesting things here: 1) the deleted comment, and 2) why, if this is a new standard, it isn't the opposite--the human VO floor being $10.

@mandyzines I'm not sure what you're referring to about a 'deleted comment' in point 1. Let me know please. 🙂 

Point 2 I certainly agree with, but as @donnovan86 has pointed out, it's possible because there's a high demand for AI in almost every industry.

I will say, though, that providing AI voiceovers at a high standard (that is key) can take as much time and energy as providing human voiceovers. I do both, and I know many who do, so I can say this with conviction.  If I work on vocal nuances, proper pronunciation, editing, audio engineering, and proofreading the copy in AI-generated voiceovers, the workflow becomes more tedious. It's a different workflow, but just as demanding.

 

Unfortunately, the market always defines the demand and niche. In order to stand out in a crowd, I have to be part of it first.

I'm not comfortable providing an AI clone of my voice (or anyone's), but the market is apparently willing to pay more for it, and no laws have been truly established. Also, AI-generated imagery and audio are getting ridiculously real. 

 

It's sad, but true. The human VO floor should be the same at least, in my opinion. Thanks for replying.

 

13 hours ago, donnovan86 said:

AI is a newer category so maybe they added this price limit because it's new, and they will eventually add price restrictions to the older categories. One can only hope. We'll see.

I agree. I think that's exactly why.  I'm hanging on to that hope. Thanks for replying. 

[vibronx]

14 hours ago, mandyzines said:

1) the deleted comment

Just wanna say that I never made a comment. The OP commented on the laugh emoji I put on his first post—in case that was what you were referring to.

I agree with you that it would make more sense that human voice overs would be more valued. I hate AI (I think almost everybody on the forum knows that by now), and I’m doing a big project currently that will take hundreds of voice actors to complete. I’ll only be hiring real people. Never AI. I’m totally against that.

Edited October 16, 2023 by vibronx

[mandyzines]

@ag_vocalize vibronx clued me in on the perceived missing comment. After a new client coming to me wanting to replace an AI voice over that didn't work, I tried fiddling around with it a little bit and, wow, it did seem tedious. I just don't think I could do that all day--HA! I suspect that consumers aren't responding the way that the industry hoped they would and the PR of course will sell it as being popular because we're still inclined to be pack animals, psychologically.

As a consumer, I think the most believable AI narration I've heard is on Big Island Video News, but it also makes more sense in that niche. After the third video or so, it still 'felt' flat, though.

So, are saying that you've cloned your own voice? How?

@vibronx I think what chaps my hide the most is on one hand we're being told that there's a loneliness epidemic, yet the learning realm has been the most targeted for this latest and greatest, and very heavily invested in, technology. That old "More Doctors Smoke Camels" campaign comes to mind.

I give people goosebumps. I'm wondering if AI's ever done that, or if it ever will be able to connect with people in that way.

[ag_vocalize]

15 hours ago, vibronx said:

Just wanna say that I never made a comment. The OP commented on the laugh emoji I put on his first post—in case that was what you were referring to.

I agree with you that it would make more sense that human voice overs would be more valued. I hate AI (I think almost everybody on the forum knows that by now), and I’m doing a big project currently that will take hundreds of voice actors to complete. I’ll only be hiring real people. Never AI. I’m totally against that.

To anyone reading this, @vibronx is absolutely right. I was responding to his laugh emoji. Mainly because I'm saddened by the fact that this is the state of affairs. It really is funny in a sad way!

@vibronxCongratulations on the large project. I wish you the best, and I hope there will continue to be people who make choices like yours where we're valued at least as much as AI. 👍
 

6 hours ago, mandyzines said:

@ag_vocalize vibronx clued me in on the perceived missing comment. After a new client coming to me wanting to replace an AI voice over that didn't work, I tried fiddling around with it a little bit and, wow, it did seem tedious. I just don't think I could do that all day--HA! I suspect that consumers aren't responding the way that the industry hoped they would and the PR of course will sell it as being popular because we're still inclined to be pack animals, psychologically.

As a consumer, I think the most believable AI narration I've heard is on Big Island Video News, but it also makes more sense in that niche. After the third video or so, it still 'felt' flat, though.

So, are saying that you've cloned your own voice? How?

@vibronx I think what chaps my hide the most is on one hand we're being told that there's a loneliness epidemic, yet the learning realm has been the most targeted for this latest and greatest, and very heavily invested in, technology. That old "More Doctors Smoke Camels" campaign comes to mind.

I give people goosebumps. I'm wondering if AI's ever done that, or if it ever will be able to connect with people in that way.

 

@mandyzines I'm not sure about the rules on the Fiverr forums yet, so I'll leave company names out of it, but yes, I had my voice professionally cloned. Basically I had to send a 3 to 4 hours read in a certain style. It then took the people working with the AI platform 5 weeks to clone it. It is uncanny, and I mean borderline scary, how much it sounds and 'speaks' like me. 5 out of 6 members of my immediate family could not tell it wasn't me when I just played back a generated read to them and asked, 'What do you think? Is it good? I'm trying a slightly new style'. I never mentioned AI to them. 

I didn't mean for this question to be based on the ethics of AI-generated voices, but I suppose it has to overlap with the answers and somewhere in the discussion. When people ask me for my opinion of AI, they tend to be looking through the lens of AI in 'creativity', mainly AI-generated imagery, music, sound design, voiceovers, coding, etc. I try to zoom out and look through a larger lens at AI as a whole, in its entirety. 

1. AI is doing and showing very productive potential in healthcare and natural disaster prevention, for example. I hope that continues.
2. AI is being misused in the creative fields when the data being used to train the models is without consent. 
3. I'm trying to remain positive that some legislature will be implemented soon that will appease people on both sides of the fence.
4. A lot of what is basically automation is now being labelled as 'AI' because it's a strong SEO keyword. 🙂 The auto-predict feature on our phones has been around for many years. Now they're referring to it as 'AI-predict' because it's been improved by reading more of what we type. 
5. Yes, I truly believe AI will be able to connect with people in the way you are referring to. It's a very sad truth that is being proven truer every week as the AI ecosystem unfolds.

There is an unfortunate cost to every major advancement in technology. There always has been in history. That will remain the case. People building horse carriages lost their livelihood when cars started getting manufactured. The list can go on.

After 25 years in the Creative and Academia industries, I retired as a Creative Director about 10 months ago. Quite new to being a voiceover freelancer.

One thing I've learnt, which I hope can help even one person - if our creative solutions align with the client's creative problems, 95% of them couldn't care less how many years I studied it, how long I've been honing my skills, or what emotions and passion went into it. They will become repeat and loyal clients if the end product/service meets and exceeds their expectations.  

Sorry for the long comment, but you made a really good point about the 'loneliness epidemic' @mandyzines. 

I wish all of us find our versions of success. Keep kicking! 🙂 

Edited October 16, 2023 by ag_vocalize

[uk1000]

7 hours ago, ag_vocalize said:

A lot of what is basically automation is now being labelled as 'AI' because it's a strong SEO keyword. 🙂 The auto-predict feature on our phones has been around for many years. Now they're referring to it as 'AI-predict' because it's been improved by reading more of what we type. 

Though it's roughly how large language models and chat-GPT work, though they work by predicting the next token (eg. representing a partial word). I think I read one of the phones (iphones?) recently got a very small AI model for that predictive text.

[mandyzines]

On 10/16/2023 at 12:36 PM, ag_vocalize said:

To anyone reading this, @vibronx is absolutely right. I was responding to his laugh emoji. Mainly because I'm saddened by the fact that this is the state of affairs. It really is funny in a sad way!

@vibronxCongratulations on the large project. I wish you the best, and I hope there will continue to be people who make choices like yours where we're valued at least as much as AI. 👍
 

 

@mandyzines I'm not sure about the rules on the Fiverr forums yet, so I'll leave company names out of it, but yes, I had my voice professionally cloned. Basically I had to send a 3 to 4 hours read in a certain style. It then took the people working with the AI platform 5 weeks to clone it. It is uncanny, and I mean borderline scary, how much it sounds and 'speaks' like me. 5 out of 6 members of my immediate family could not tell it wasn't me when I just played back a generated read to them and asked, 'What do you think? Is it good? I'm trying a slightly new style'. I never mentioned AI to them. 

I didn't mean for this question to be based on the ethics of AI-generated voices, but I suppose it has to overlap with the answers and somewhere in the discussion. When people ask me for my opinion of AI, they tend to be looking through the lens of AI in 'creativity', mainly AI-generated imagery, music, sound design, voiceovers, coding, etc. I try to zoom out and look through a larger lens at AI as a whole, in its entirety. 

1. AI is doing and showing very productive potential in healthcare and natural disaster prevention, for example. I hope that continues.
2. AI is being misused in the creative fields when the data being used to train the models is without consent. 
3. I'm trying to remain positive that some legislature will be implemented soon that will appease people on both sides of the fence.
4. A lot of what is basically automation is now being labelled as 'AI' because it's a strong SEO keyword. 🙂 The auto-predict feature on our phones has been around for many years. Now they're referring to it as 'AI-predict' because it's been improved by reading more of what we type. 
5. Yes, I truly believe AI will be able to connect with people in the way you are referring to. It's a very sad truth that is being proven truer every week as the AI ecosystem unfolds.

There is an unfortunate cost to every major advancement in technology. There always has been in history. That will remain the case. People building horse carriages lost their livelihood when cars started getting manufactured. The list can go on.

After 25 years in the Creative and Academia industries, I retired as a Creative Director about 10 months ago. Quite new to being a voiceover freelancer.

One thing I've learnt, which I hope can help even one person - if our creative solutions align with the client's creative problems, 95% of them couldn't care less how many years I studied it, how long I've been honing my skills, or what emotions and passion went into it. They will become repeat and loyal clients if the end product/service meets and exceeds their expectations.  

Sorry for the long comment, but you made a really good point about the 'loneliness epidemic' @mandyzines. 

I wish all of us find our versions of success. Keep kicking! 🙂 

i appreciate the long comment, although I might not have enough coffee in me to respond in-kind. I can definitely tell the difference between your pet bot and you, but I went into the gigs looking for that.

I get a lot of inquiries for use of my voice to create a synthetic version of myself and they all have different terms attached to them. I even saw a post somewhere else offering VA's the creation of their own bot. I've told myself that if anyone's going to own my bot, it's going to be me, but the tediousness of being a jockey that I have barely delved into isn't at all attractive to me.

At some point, I wonder if we'll evolve to have less legs and hopefully better backs from constantly sitting in front of screens.

Anyway, if true artificial intelligence is going to connect with people in the same way a human can then all of the money and effort put forth in creating pet bots will be for naught.

Beam me up, Scotty!

[ag_vocalize]

12 hours ago, mandyzines said:

i appreciate the long comment, although I might not have enough coffee in me to respond in-kind. I can definitely tell the difference between your pet bot and you, but I went into the gigs looking for that.

I get a lot of inquiries for use of my voice to create a synthetic version of myself and they all have different terms attached to them. I even saw a post somewhere else offering VA's the creation of their own bot. I've told myself that if anyone's going to own my bot, it's going to be me, but the tediousness of being a jockey that I have barely delved into isn't at all attractive to me.

At some point, I wonder if we'll evolve to have less legs and hopefully better backs from constantly sitting in front of screens.

Anyway, if true artificial intelligence is going to connect with people in the same way a human can then all of the money and effort put forth in creating pet bots will be for naught.

Beam me up, Scotty!

'I might not have enough coffee in me to respond in-kind.'
Ha! Just woke up to start some practicing - same here.

'I get a lot of inquiries for use of my voice to create a synthetic version of myself and they all have different terms attached to them.'
Please be careful. I asked for contracts from 4 of the platforms. Turned down 3 of them because they were mainly about covering their rears and had no intention of keeping the talent in mind. I don't intend to provide more to the platform I'm using until their business model changes to compensate VO talents for their services, which they claim will happen soon.

'better backs from constantly sitting in front of screens.'
Good advice for all freelancers.

'Beam me up, Scotty!'
Yup!

Have a good one. 🙂 
 

SELLERS: Don't sell your AI-voice services if you don't have the commercial rights. Not only is it misleading and a disservice, but it's breaking the current blurry laws. 
BUYERS: Please, ask sellers for proof of commercial ownership!