This is actually quite impressive from an engineer viewpoint. I just have the feeling that the videos quickly become very monotonous and rather boring due to the monotonous AI voices. If somehow you could bring dynamic variation in these videos that would be fantastic.

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jonplackett 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The thing I like about an explainer video is the personality and insight of the person giving it.

Like Marquise Brownlee just has opinions I care about and I watch his videos for this reason.

If a video just explains something I could just read all I’m getting is a layer of obfuscation.

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nonethewiser 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Presumably you also like that they are explaining things right? I mean that seems like the more critical step. Otherwise if it's just Marquise Brownlee, you could just watch Marquise Brownlee say the same sequence of random words for 3 minutes a few times per day.

	▲	jonplackett 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I feel I need to explain beyond just a whine. I think this is exactly the opposite of what AI should be used for. It is going to make people dumb. Watching a video instead of engaging your own brain makes you feel like you learned something without actually trying and I would bet it works much less well. If someone is there adding something beyond what is already there - ie someone like Maruqise. Then it makes sense for them to be there. If not it is just brain rot. People already have issues with concentration. Allowing them to further allow that muscle to atrophy will not be good.

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4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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xp84 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

All of what you said is great, and I especially detest the proliferation of slop videos on YouTube, where it makes no sense to drown out the ample supply of such personalities and insights with AI voices summarizing wikipedia or Reddit threads over AI imagery slideshows.

But given how good a job this seemed to do at giving me more than just headlines, I'd love to have maybe even just an audio podcast feed of the top 10 stories like this compiled a few times a day. I would listen while I'm doing things when reading isn't practical.

tl;dr agree that we don't need this to replace reading, but I see that it can be a useful tool.

	▲	TomGarden 4 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I just had opus make me a tts mobile app that grabs the top 20 HN stories and the top 5 comments for each and read them out to me (using one of the higher quality built in TTS voices on my pixel). The summarization is the worst part of this imo, so pure TTS wins
	▲	jonplackett 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Yeah I do see your point. And for some reason making it into audio does seem less offensive to me. Maybe it’s because it at least transforms it into something I can do while doing something else. Whereas a video is basically the same mode of operation: staring at a screen. I’m still basically against this though. I consider it slop.

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mrborgen 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Thanks! And I agree. We're getting tons of requests for more nuance in voice selection from our users. You're currently able to say i.e. "Australian English female" in your prompts today, but you should also ideally be able to describe the voice characteristic (i.e. like a funny grandpa, engaged news reporter).

What Gemini 3.8 Flash TTS is doing with generative voice design in this area super interesting.

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itomato 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

0:04 for the first , 0:02 for the second. I'm personally all done with that.