Would you let AI Michael Caine read you Homer’s Odyssey?

In a new audiobook edition of The Odyssey, Homer’s nearly 3,000-year-old epic poem, the voice of British actor Michael Caine delivers the story’s soaring opening lines in his distinctive, gravelly staccato.

- Alexandra Alter

“Tell me, O Muse, of that sagacious man who, having overthrown the sacred town of Ilium, wandered far and visited the capitals of many nations, learnt the customs of their dwellers, and endured great suffering on the deep,” his voice intones over a soft, melancholy orchestral score.

Caine, 93, is the latest celebrity to lend his voice to The Odyssey, following acclaimed narrations by actors Claire Danes and Ian McKellen. But Caine is not 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 AI clone of his voice for the project.

A team of four producers created the 13-hour audiobook, which came out on June 23 and is available for free on the company’s ElevenReader platform. It features Caine’s voice clone and a supporting cast of 20 AI voices layered with AI-generated sound effects and a musical score, and was put together in just over six weeks.

The project, explained Jack McDermott, who leads mobile growth and marketing at ElevenLabs, is meant to showcase the creative potential of voice clones and AI narration - while capitalising on heightened interest in The Odyssey before Christopher Nolan’s Hollywood adaptation comes out in July, starring Matt Damon, Tom Holland and Anne Hathaway.