An AI Michael Caine Reading ‘The Odyssey’ Is a Spectacularly Bad Idea

Did I read The Odyssey in high school? Sure. But did I really, like, read The Odyssey in high school? Questionable! I’m sure I looked at the words, and I know, for a fact, that I (and my other classmates) had to read select passages out loud, but I’m not going to pretend that I absorbed anything from those words (and that is not a brag). Instead, I was more interested in getting to watch O Brother, Where Art Thou once we were done reading the book.

I’m sure I wasn’t alone in how I absorbed that story, and, again, that is not a good thing. I’ve always had a decent understanding of Shakespeare, but Homer’s epic poem did very little for me, and I can’t imagine that hearing it any other way would change that. Seeing an artist’s interpretation of the story sounds more fun, and this year, we’ll be getting that again from Christopher Nolan. We’ll also get the robotic echoes of one of his longtime collaborators “reading” the story.

Deadline is reporting that an AI company known as ElevenLabs will be releasing an audiobook of the story narrated by “Michael Caine’s AI Clone,” a dystopian descriptor if there ever was one. His fake self will be joined by a bunch of other fake people, and the audio will be released this summer, hoping to capitalize on the release of the Odyssey, which makes this whole thing sound even dumber.

Look, Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey will (allegedly) clock in at a little under three hours, which ain’t bad, all things considered. The audiobook will be 13 hours long. And look, I know that they are a different medium, but the idea that some executive fired off an email (that likely CC’d Matthew McConaughey, as he is an investor), talking about how epic it would be to put 13 hours of this trash into the airwaves, would give them a bump is laughable at best. Even if the company calls the experience “cinematic,” it sounds boring as hell.

But honestly, come on. We live in a world of shortcuts. Plenty of folks would likely rather want to watch a shorter movie than listen to a longer audiobook. There might be plenty of classics majors who they can appeal to, but I’m guessing (and hoping) that they also wouldn’t be interested in some lifeless AI reading the epic story. The whole thing is just dumb.

It also doesn’t help that there’s a quote allegedly from Michael Caine in the article, and I don’t mind saying that it is allegedly from him. He certainly didn’t read The Odyssey, so how do I know that the people bothered enough to get a pull quote from him? That stuff can already feel kind of dubious, but adding AI to the mix just makes the whole thing suck even more (as is tradition).