Text to Speech software

Agree with Mike, here.

I find TTS tremendously helpful in generating scratch audio for stakeholder review before we send it off to have the pro voice it. Saves a ton of time. I really only want to have my narrator read it once. 

There are some places where I might use TTS intentionally. Like if I wanted to personify a machine. Used strategically as a production element, there are some situations where the insertion of TTS as a spice and not as a substitute could be really successful.

Unfortunately, most TTS output is pretty awful. Some folks have a high tolerance for awful or their focus is elsewhere so they have extra grace for artificial production elements or "cheapness." To each their own:) I take Joel's point above well. Let folks know up front that it's bot-read and own it if you're going to use TTS as a substitute. At least then they can vote with their feet or use the mute option.

TTS is getting better. But most of it is still stuck in the last decade. There aren't that many voice vendors. Far less than there are tools that use the same licensed voices in their TTS generator. Some are better than others. Loquendo and Ivona were pushing things in the right direction but they both had a long way to go...

I'm in the "If i had to listen to more than 60 seconds of this as employee training, i'd ___________." camp... I'd actually just mute the darn thing, as I have with lots of stuff that isn't well selected or well produced. There are pro narrators (including great ones that get commissioned to execute bad scripts) that scratch my brain too. Or stuff that just simply doesn't need to be narrated at all. These will get the same treatment as high doses of TTS on my machine. I have a volume control for a reason;)

YMMV