Titled ‘Melania,’ the first lady says that her audiobook is ‘narrated entirely using artificial intelligence in my own voice,’ calling it the future of publishing’
Melania Trump statue sawed off, stolen
A bronze statue of Melania Trump has gone missing in her home country of Slovenia, five years after it replaced a wooden statue that was burned.
First lady Melania Trump is getting a little help with the release of the audiobook version of her memoir: artificial intelligence.
“I am honored to bring you Melania – The AI Audiobook – narrated entirely using artificial intelligence in my own voice,” Trump wrote in a post on X, along with a futuristic video. “Let the future of publishing begin.”
The English version of the book, titled “Melania,” has a runtime of seven hours and is for sale on the first lady’s personal website for $25. It’s available in other languages like Spanish, Portuguese, Hindi, with “other languages coming soon,” according to ElevenLabs.
The first lady’s memoir was published back in October 2024 in the middle of the presidential election. The book covers everything from Melania Trump’s life in Cold War-era Yugoslavia to her marriage to President Donald Trump.
It received major media coverage in the days before its release, as Melania defended a woman’s right to choose in the book.
“It is imperative to guarantee that women have autonomy in deciding their preference of having children, based on their own convictions, free from any intervention or pressure from the government,” she wrote.
Book comes as Trump warns of AI
Earlier this week, President Donald Trump signed into law the bipartisan Take it Down Act, outlawing and penalizing the publication of nonconsensual real and computer-generated images, known as “deep fakes” that are often used as revenge pornography.
The First Lady was in attendance at the signing and spoke on the potential dangers of artificial intelligence.
“Artificial intelligence and social media are the digital candy for the next generation, sweet, addictive, and engineered to have an impact on the connectivity development of our children,” she said. “But unlike sugar, these new technologies can be weaponized to shape beliefs and, sadly, affect emotions and even be deadly.”
AI narration faces debate
The release of Melania Trump’s audiobook narrated by artificial intelligence comes as a debate rages about the usage of the technology for narration.
Earlier this month, Amazon-owned Audible announced that it was planning to use AI technology to narrate audiobooks via “select partnerships.”
“We are bringing new audiobooks to life through our own fully integrated, end-to-end AI production technology,” Audible said in a news release.
The company said the move benefits publishers as it allows audiobooks to be more easily distributed in various languages like English, Spanish, French and Italian.
But some writers, translators and voice actors criticized the move. According to the Guardian, “Chocolat” author Joanne Harris said that Audible’s move was “shortsighted.”
“In an age of declining literacy, I can’t think of anything more likely to put people off listening to audiobooks altogether,” Harris said. “This shortsighted scheme reduces what we love about storytelling to the simple delivery of code.”
Another critic told the Guardian that human audiobook narrators, who have included Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks, “actively sell audio content by being good at their jobs.”
“The art – and it is an art – of a good audiobook is the crack in the voice at a moment of unexpected emotion, the wryness of good comedy timing, or the disbelief a listener feels when one person can convincingly be a whole cast of characters,” Kristin Atherton told the outlet.
Contributing: Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy, USA TODAY
Fernando Cervantes Jr. is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach him at fernando.cervantes@gannett.com and follow him on X @fern_cerv_.
