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Would You Let A.I. Michael Caine Read You the 'Odyssey'? (NYT, 6/23/26)
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/23/books/michael-caine-odyssey-ai.htmlCaine is the latest celebrity to lend his voice to Homer’s epic, following acclaimed narrations of the “Odyssey” by actors like Claire Danes and Ian McKellen. But Caine isn’t really telling the story. Instead, he licensed his voice to ElevenLabs, a company that produces audiobooks and other content voiced by artificial intelligence, which used an A.I. clone of his voice for the project.
A team of four producers created the 13-hour audiobook, which came out on Tuesday and is available free on the company’s ElevenReader platform. The production features Caine’s voice clone and a supporting cast of 20 different A.I. voices layered with A.I.-generated sound effects and a musical score, and was put together in just over six weeks.
-snip-
The ElevenLabs “Odyssey” uses an English-language translation by the American poet William Cullen Bryant, which was published in the early 1870s and is now in the public domain. Caine’s replicated voice delivers lines of omniscient narration in his slightly gruff Cockney British accent. While the voice clone sounds unmistakably like Caine, the performance comes across as reserved and distant, with little emotional modulation.
-snip-
Some of the most dramatic and emotional scenes in the story — like the sequence in which Odysseus returns to Ithaca — fall flat. There isn’t a trace of rage in Odysseus’s voice when he warns the suitors who have been wooing his wife, Penelope, in his absence that they’re about to die. And when the terrified suitors respond, they sound more serene than scared.
-snip-
A team of four producers created the 13-hour audiobook, which came out on Tuesday and is available free on the company’s ElevenReader platform. The production features Caine’s voice clone and a supporting cast of 20 different A.I. voices layered with A.I.-generated sound effects and a musical score, and was put together in just over six weeks.
-snip-
The ElevenLabs “Odyssey” uses an English-language translation by the American poet William Cullen Bryant, which was published in the early 1870s and is now in the public domain. Caine’s replicated voice delivers lines of omniscient narration in his slightly gruff Cockney British accent. While the voice clone sounds unmistakably like Caine, the performance comes across as reserved and distant, with little emotional modulation.
-snip-
Some of the most dramatic and emotional scenes in the story — like the sequence in which Odysseus returns to Ithaca — fall flat. There isn’t a trace of rage in Odysseus’s voice when he warns the suitors who have been wooing his wife, Penelope, in his absence that they’re about to die. And when the terrified suitors respond, they sound more serene than scared.
-snip-
Very disappointing - both that Caine would license an AI copy of his voice, and the AI narration that resulted. (The article has an audioclip.)
The comments I saw on the NYT website were pretty negative.
If nothing else, Caine should have enough respect for others to let a human who can read the book with real emotion do the narrating. He's giving a thumbs-up to dehumanizing tech that will deprive others of work, income and recognition.