Soultime said in a statement that it “evaluated a range of text-to-speech platforms but found Google’s Wavenet the most natural-sounding,” however, because “the Bible text is extremely complex” it had to “work hard to modify the basic reading to create something that both sounded natural and was truly enjoyable to listen to.”

“AI readings have some great advantages,” the makers of the Christian app explain. “Having developed the initial version, further [Bible reading] versions can be easily produced in different accents, genders or languages. Also, as text-to-speech voices improve over time, the readings can be easily updated.”

“This is not an intellectual process so much as a spiritual and emotional process of trying to understand what it is that our hearts are believing,” Wagner told Premier Christian Radio last year. “To do that, we need a certain amount of calm, a certain amount of peace; we need a certain amount of time.”

Soultime helps believers do that through music, graphics and a series of guided meditations with various themes, including “Jesus carries our anxieties away,” “Freedom with Forgiveness,” and “Exploring the Lord’s Prayer.”

The app has been endorsed by Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury. “Soultime is a wonderful app. I warmly recommend it,” he was quoted as saying.

Source: christianpost.com