AI-generated speech can be heard in customer service and media. Now some patients who lost the ability to talk due to cancer or other disease are using AI to resurrect their natural voices.
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MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Artificial intelligence is starting to sound a whole lot more human, whether it’s a voice in customer service…
AI-GENERATED VOICE: (As customer service rep) How can I help you today?
KELLY: …Or in a news summary…
AI-GENERATED VOICE: (As weather reporter) A fierce tornado carved a 16-mile…
KELLY: …Or in a movie.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “TOP GUN: MAVERICK”)
AI-GENERATED VOICE: (As Val Kilmer as Tom “Iceman” Kazansky) The Navy needs Maverick.
KELLY: Now the technology is also being used to help people speak again after suffering cancer or neurological diseases like ALS. From member station KQED in San Francisco, April Dembosky has the story of one woman’s journey to find her voice again.
APRIL DEMBOSKY, BYLINE: For almost a year, Sonya Sotinsky went to her orthodontist complaining of a strange sensation under her tongue. Then water began dribbling down her chin when she drank. The pain got so bad, she insisted her doctor take a closer look.
AI-GENERATED VOICE: (As Sonya Sotinsky) And he looked and then kept looking. And then I saw it in his face when he finally leaned back.
DEMBOSKY: The cancer was so widespread, surgeons had to remove Sotinsky’s entire tongue and her voice box.
AI-GENERATED VOICE: (As Sonya Sotinsky) Like, what the literal…
DEMBOSKY: Sotinsky is sassy and sarcastic, prone to profanity.
AI-GENERATED VOICE: (As Sonya Sotinsky) Like, what cosmic retribution is this?
DEMBOSKY: She realized her tone, her cadence, her slight New Jersey accent – they were fingerprints of her identity. To lose her voice was to lose herself.
AI-GENERATED VOICE: (As Sonya Sotinsky) When you lack the ability to communicate fully, I think you get reduced. I think they forget you are a full, intelligent human.
DEMBOSKY: What you’re hearing now is Sotinsky’s AI voice. It took her two years and a dozen children’s books to find it, including Dr. Seuss and “Eloise.”
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SONYA SOTINSKY: (Reading) Fifth floor, please.
DEMBOSKY: Back when she was waiting for her surgery, Sotinsky spent hours recording herself reading these classics to one day play for her future grandchildren.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SOTINSKY: (Reading) So Horton stopped splashing. He looked toward the sound. That’s funny, thought Horton. There’s no one around.
DEMBOSKY: She also recorded the things she would never again be able to say to her husband and daughters – happy birthday, I’m proud of you. And she made sure to bank her favorite filthy phrases, too.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SOTINSKY: Are you f****** kidding me? No f****** way. F*** me and the horse I rode in on.
DEMBOSKY: Sotinsky did all of this on her own. Her cancer doctors were focused on saving her life. They don’t tell patients to record their voices before they lose them.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SOTINSKY: What the literal f***?
DEMBOSKY: Most patients like Sotinsky, who have their voice box removed, are given an electrolarynx, which sounds like this.
ELECTROLARYNX VOICE: One, two, three. Can I please have a cup of tea?
DEMBOSKY: It’s a small, battery-operated device held against the throat while the person speaks. But without a tongue to shape her words, Sotinsky knew that wouldn’t work. At the time of her surgery, the best she could find was a basic synthesized version of her voice.
AI-GENERATED VOICE: (As Sonya Sotinsky) But it has zero expression.
DEMBOSKY: She typed what she wanted to say into a phone app that translated her words into speech.
AI-GENERATED VOICE: (As Sonya Sotinsky) So there is not sarcasm. There is no life to it. I can use my words, and the people who know me best can infer. Sometimes, they infer wrong.
DEMBOSKY: It was so frustrating – others projecting their ideas of her personality onto her.
AI-GENERATED VOICE: (As Sonya Sotinsky) I have silently screamed and screamed at there being no scream.
DEMBOSKY: That went on for a year and a half until Sotinsky read about tech companies using generative AI to replicate a person’s full range of natural inflection and emotion. Remember those recordings she made for her family before surgery?
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SOTINSKY: (Reading) Fifteenth floor, please.
DEMBOSKY: These days, AI companies can recreate someone’s voice from snippets of an old home movie or even a one-minute voicemail, but 30 minutes is the sweet spot. Sotinsky had banked hours.
AI-GENERATED VOICE: (As Sonya Sotinsky) So “Eloise” saved my voice.
DEMBOSKY: Now she carries her wireless keyboard and portable speakers everywhere to project her AI voice.
ELA FUENTEVILLA: It’s crazy similar.
DEMBOSKY: This is her daughter, Ela Fuentevilla.
FUENTEVILLA: I mean, like, she’s still my mom.
DEMBOSKY: Sotinsky paid $3,000 out of pocket to get everything set up, and now puts $99 a month for her AI voice on her credit card. Her health insurance company won’t reimburse her.
AI-GENERATED VOICE: (As Sonya Sotinsky) Apparently, having a voice is not considered a medical necessity.
DEMBOSKY: In a statement, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona said health plans generally don’t cover assistive communication devices, focusing on lifesaving care instead.
JENNIFER DE LOS SANTOS: Insurance is a business.
DEMBOSKY: Dr. Jennifer De Los Santos is a head-and-neck cancer researcher at Washington University in St. Louis. She says insurers need proof that a treatment works before they will cover it.
DE LOS SANTOS: The approval is based on data.
DEMBOSKY: So when she heard Sotinsky’s story, De Los Santos kicked off a new study to start gathering that data…
DE LOS SANTOS: And therefore justify coverage by insurance.
DEMBOSKY: She and other doctors believe research will eventually show that having a fully functioning, natural-sounding voice will lead to not only a better life but a longer one. Sue Yom is Sotinsky’s radiation oncologist at U.C. San Francisco.
SUE YOM: Communication is a lot of how we not only express ourselves and relate to other people, but also how we actually make sense of the world. I’m one of these people who thinks out loud as I’m talking. I’m doing that right now. And if you can’t do that anymore, you have to find a different way to process those vital functions.
DEMBOSKY: In recent months, Sotinsky’s AI voice literally helped save her life. Her cancer came back in her lungs and liver. Discussing her treatment options with her doctors made her realize just how medically necessary having a voice is.
AI-GENERATED VOICE: (As Sonya Sotinsky) I mean, if you can only scribble a few words on a whiteboard, it just does not lead to the same sort of dialogue.
DEMBOSKY: Doctors cleared the cancer, but the scare forced Sotinsky to confront her odds in a new way.
AI-GENERATED VOICE: (As Sonya Sotinsky) Emotionally, you start to get cocky again. And then this was like, whoa, b****, we ain’t playing. This cancer is real.
DEMBOSKY: Sotinsky says sarcasm is her love language. She’s reclaiming it yet again to maintain a sense of perspective on life and a sense of humor in the face of death. For NPR News, I’m April Dembosky in San Francisco.
KELLY: And this story comes from NPR’s partnership with KQED and KFF Health News.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
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