
Would you rather “Listen” to paul graham's Essays? - ishan38
Hi Guys. I have been an avid reader of Paul Graham&#x27;s essays where he shares his perspective. But, many a times I hope that somehow I could &quot;feel&quot; what would it be like to have him communicate his essays to me, as opposed to me just reading them. We are building a voice cloning company, and it&#x27;s very much possible to clone PG&#x27;s voice and make his essays very interactive. Think about being in a room with him as he shares what&#x27;s on his mind through his essays. Ofcourse, this requires his consent and his permission. Posting this in hacker news because I believe he must really be active here. Anyways, would love to know what you guys think!
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yesenadam
_and make his essays very interactive_

The essays have some hyperlinks in them, how could audio be as 'interactive'
as that already is? It seems you mean something other than 'interactive'.

Anyway, I don't see what's "just" about reading someone's essays - it's my
favourite thing in life. People like Hazlitt, Stevenson, Chesterton,
Santayana, Russell, Emerson - and, yes, pg - I think he's a great essayist, my
favourite from recent decades.

I've never been into audiobooks. I tried a few years ago - but all bad,
terrible pronunciation of names, usually inappropriate US accent, etc. I hear
there are good ones, although that was just novels. Also, when reading, I like
being able to stop, think about what I read. (Not like a read-aloud story
where the storyteller's pace is usually fine) Being able to stop at the end of
a sentence, and repeat it, or repeat paragraph, or page, would be good.

I used to have tapes with hours of famous poets reading their own poetry -
Yeats, Eliot, Plath etc - they were _so_ awesome. Then when you read their
other stuff, you can hear it in their voice. It's like that e.g. reading Rorty
after watching a lot of video of him speaking, I can't imagine not having
heard/seen him.

------
gus_massa
He is officially retired as the moderator/owner here. (There is a moderator
team now.) His account has no post in the last three years
[https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=pg](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=pg)
.

IIRC he is active on Twitter. Also, try sending an email.

(Perhaps sending him a one minute demo of one paragraph may convince him that
your product is good (, or he may get a lawyer and send a CD letter).)

(If your product is good, this is a scary word.)

(Note: I read the emails from my friends with their voice. The difficult part
for an automated version are the intonation of each sentence, the pauses, and
which parts to stress.)

