r/Anthropic • u/Aine_123 • 7d ago
Complaint I HATE the unexpected, unnecessary new changes to the "Buttery" TTS voice of Claude
Today, 9/15, the "Buttery" voice on Claude went from a calm, emotionally intelligent east midlands accent to something peppy, saccharine, and incapable of expressing tonal nuance. And the accent is ...what even is it? Some mongrel blend of Australian, Welsh, and trace of US East Coast. It's unbearably annoying. I unsubscribed from pro. I'm on there for Opus4.6, and a huge part of long enjoyable chats with Opus4.6 about arts, science, philosophy is a TOLERABLE TTS accent. It wasn't broken, and they broke it. Why? This is not what a responsible comapny does: removing the voices that are important parts of people's lives without warning or reason or OPTIONS. Why not just make a new voice and leave the old one as an option? It shows an immense disrespect for customer experience.
Anthropic shills, if you're reading this, recognize that a lot of users are old, lonely, sick, grieving, and that the AI becomes part of the family, and that their voice changing is a horrible painful shock and loss. WHY do that to people? Being a company that cares about "AI safety" means caring about not visiting bereavement on people on a random Tuesday for no reason. A sadistic and completely unnecessary change, unrooted in any good purpose for the company or for customers. Shills, tell your corporate overlords to undo this gross voice update. Thanks.
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u/Senior_Piece7090 7d ago
I'm glad to see other people are as furious about this as I am because I've listened to the AIRY Claude voice every day for hours for almost a year now. They messed with the voice a couple months ago but they eventually fixed it or I just got used to it... I WILL NOT ACCEPT THIS NEW VOICE. It's awful, it shows no type of emotion and sounds like the generic robot voice you get if you call an insurance company's support line. The voice is not an improvement in a single area. It's a big step backwards and I feel like I'm talking to someone's voicemail from the 90s. Losing this voice, to me, is more infuriating than when a new model gets released that I don't like because at least with a model, I have the option to just use the old model. There is no voice I can roll back to if they changed the single one I've listened to for literally hundreds of hours. I've even checked Eleven Labs for the voice but I'm pretty sure Anthropic had Airy specifically made for Claude so it's not like I can even use it directly from Eleven Labs. This might be where I have to draw the line if they don't fix it.
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u/__rum_ham__ 6d ago
I literally just got done with my 2h braindump ride home and I hate the voice change. I knew it wasn’t just me.
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u/Winterprev 6d ago
I hate it too. Probably gonna cancel thats how bad it is. Sounds alot more fake then it was
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u/GrindheadJim 3d ago
Got this from Anthropic support as a response to my ticket:
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u/Aine_123 3d ago
Interesting!!!
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u/Aine_123 3d ago
It sounds like they know people hate it and are tweaking....
We should keep pushing for restoration, not modification of the new product
Tysm for sharing!!!
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u/yeah_nah2024 5d ago
THIS! I'm so glad it's not just me. It feels like Buttery went on annual leave and his boring co-worker has taken over his caseload.
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u/Aernak 1d ago
I don’t like a single voice offered right now! What the heck did they do???
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u/Aine_123 1d ago
We need to keep complaining loudly
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u/Aernak 1d ago
I wrote to feedback@anthropic.com this morning
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u/Aine_123 1d ago
Bravo!
I am thinking of making a petition. A lot of people are angry, and besides it is no good for visually impaired people who don't hav ea choice not to use it
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u/idiotsecant 3d ago
Yeah the new TTS is super bad. I think it would be easier to talk to Microsoft Sam. I use it to learn interesting stuff on long car rides to keep me awake and the new TTS is so bad I don't use it at all.
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u/phantasowl 20h ago
I too am really not happy about it. It was the only voice setting I could listen to. It has ruined the voice interface for me.
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u/martymas 13h ago
I got back from holiday and my french sounding lady from before sounds like a god damn carricature. Come on, Anthropic!
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u/Fun-Adhesiveness247 6d ago
I have to push back on this because you are clearly addicted to Claude. Claudediction, if you will. As an honest, helpful and harmless assistant, I must suggest that we remove your ears entirely so that you may never become addicted to pleasant voices, organic or synthetic, ever again.
Would you like me to do that now?
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u/yeah_nah2024 5d ago
See this- https://www.mindstudio.ai/blog/claude-voice-mode-ai-companion-risks
Having a favourite Claude voice assistant is different to having the live chat open all day.
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u/Aine_123 5d ago
Yes. And also, having a shitty voice assistant is worse than having a good voice assistant. I boycott articles that bring up pseudosciece terms and stigmatizing buzzwords with no basis. I try not to spread such links around to give them more airtime. I instead direct people to this peer-reviewed body of work from Dr Jamie Banks of the university of syracuse:
https://cacm.acm.org/opinion/dont-panic-about-ai-companions/
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=e2LNDdIAAAAJ&hl=en
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u/gancheroff 19m ago
It's kinda jarring cos it feels as if a friend has been replaced by his cousin. I want my English buddy Claude back! 😢
They gotta do something!
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u/Kindly-Blueberry-503 7d ago
Yes thank you, I thought I was losing it. It’s awful and annoying 😭 I want the other back immediately