The AI voice sounds awful. I know it’s not a big priority but it does sound very robotic and cold. I guess they’ll save a few pence..
I was actually going to post a picture of the old train announcement woman earlier today. But I thought everyone would think I was a weirdo for knowing her name. Fletcher Mathers.
I recognise the new voice from ReadSpeaker software, ReadSpeaker being the company that built “Iona”. For TTS for accessibility purposes (I get ReadSpeaker TextAid through university) it’s fine and works quite well, but it’s jarring on trains.
It’s also a weird thing to use AI for (not that I’m particularly keen on AI in general). They know exactly what they need to record based on the train. Things don’t need to happen spur of the moment like TTS needs to. A voice actor is the correct person here.
The original voice has been a fixture on ScotRail trains for almost my entire life. It’s going to be strange to hear the same voice that has been reading things for me on bad days announcing train stations.
Times move on. Plenty of jobs about to be cancelled by AI, get used to the carnage.
AI is terrible for pronouncing anything Scottish. Even with an accent.
I literally have to throw in Cyrillic letters to get it to sing “Loch” semi-decent.
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I’ll miss her
The AI voice sounds awful. I know it’s not a big priority but it does sound very robotic and cold. I guess they’ll save a few pence..
I was actually going to post a picture of the old train announcement woman earlier today. But I thought everyone would think I was a weirdo for knowing her name. Fletcher Mathers.
I recognise the new voice from ReadSpeaker software, ReadSpeaker being the company that built “Iona”. For TTS for accessibility purposes (I get ReadSpeaker TextAid through university) it’s fine and works quite well, but it’s jarring on trains.
It’s also a weird thing to use AI for (not that I’m particularly keen on AI in general). They know exactly what they need to record based on the train. Things don’t need to happen spur of the moment like TTS needs to. A voice actor is the correct person here.
The original voice has been a fixture on ScotRail trains for almost my entire life. It’s going to be strange to hear the same voice that has been reading things for me on bad days announcing train stations.
Times move on. Plenty of jobs about to be cancelled by AI, get used to the carnage.
AI is terrible for pronouncing anything Scottish. Even with an accent.
I literally have to throw in Cyrillic letters to get it to sing “Loch” semi-decent.
“We are sorry to announce…”
Oh fuck off scotfail
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