My role, the email explained, would involve recording original commentary on a “great book”—Clancy suggested Romeo and Juliet, though it could be any classic in the public domain. This commentary would somehow be implanted in the text and made interactive: Readers would be able to ask questions and AI-me would engage in an “ongoing conversation” with them about the book. We’d be reading buddies.
“There’s something really magical about the way someone speaks, something compressed inside people’s voices that brings language to life,” Dubuque thinks, while also concerned about the “ick factor”—are voice clones creepy? Dubuque is convinced that retaining the human element, wherever possible, is crucial. “It comes back to authenticity,” he said. “If you just had the bot, you’d lose that connection.” For now, Rebind has decided to send in the clones.