Random House has begun to disable the Kindle’s built-in text to speech synthesizer for selected books, presumably based on the notion that this feature — which exists mostly for readers with disabilities and impairments — may be cutting into their audiobook sales.
I present for your consideration: A Kindle and an iPod Shuffle, representing the state of the art in text-to-speech technology, performing a scene from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn.
Believe me, when these things are up to Shatneresque levels of eloquence, Skynet is as good as here. Book sales will be the least of your problems.