Here are some excerpts from a “Washington Post” article about Rep. Jennifer Wexton, who has progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP).
Excerpt:
It seemed like the simplest of things — the sound of her own voice. But Rep. Jennifer Wexton (D-Va.) “cried happy tears” recently when she typed out some words and heard them read aloud by an artificial intelligence-generated version of the speaking voice she has all but lost to a degenerative medical condition. … Wexton made headlines this year by using a robotic-sounding speech application to deliver remarks on the House floor. It was a widely hailed display of resilient spirit, but the app didn’t sound like her.
Excerpt:
This week, Wexton rolled out her new, more natural-sounding voice as she stood to address the House Appropriations Committee, occasionally touching the walker she’s used since being diagnosed with a Parkinson’s-like condition called progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP). … The Wexton voice model came about after a video of her using the text-to-speech app in May caught the attention of ElevenLabs, an AI voice start-up based in New York. The company contacted the congresswoman’s staff, and after she gave the green light, staffers spent a couple of weeks compiling more than an hour of audio clips of Wexton speaking before the disease affected her voice. It took the company just a few days to generate a digital version of Wexton’s voice. … Wexton’s office pays a small subscription fee to ElevenLabs for the service.
Click here for the full article: (behind a paywall)
Rep. Wexton, confronting degenerative disease, finds her voice through AI