When the late, great Stephen Hawking published his book A Brief History of Time in 1988, it quickly became a success and was on the Sunday Times bestseller list for 237 weeks. The book introduced a wide audience to complex cosmological concepts in a (fairly) simple way. The press that surrounded the publication, introduced us to a man who was suffering from an extremely debilitating illness, while still managing to carry on his scientific work, at a level that far exceeds most of us, and retain a huge sense of humour and lust for life.
For those of us who had not come into contact with MND or similar conditions, it was likely the first time we had seen a real person using assistive technology to speak. The robotic, American accented voice that his Speech Plus CallText 5010 synthesizer provided, became deeply linked to his identity, and despite newer more natural sounding voices becoming available during his lifetime he chose to keep to the original. He felt strongly that the synthesized voice was his own, and preserving it was a matter of personal expression. His stance highlighted the importance of user autonomy in assistive technology design. In the foreword to the World Report on Disability (2011), Hawking emphasized the moral duty to provide access to communication tools for all people with disabilities. He believed that communication is a human right, and his own experience underscored the transformative power of assistive tech. Who can forget his cameo in the cartoon The Simpsons where he declared “Silence. I don’t need anyone to talk for me except this voice box.”
How eight seconds of scratchy audio from a VHS tape gave a mum back her voice – BBC News
If you were listening to the Today programme on Radion 4 on the morning of 20 August, you would have heard the story of Sarah Ezekiel, an English woman with MND, who lost her speech and the use of her hands 25 years ago, and who’s children Aviva and Eric had no memory of what their mums voice sounded like, other than in home videos. In 2005 she began using eye gazing technology and had a similar robotic voice to Stephen Hawkings – this provided her with the means to communicate, although the voice was not hers, and warmth and emotion was lacking. Your loved ones voices are a treasure not to be taken for granted, and even today, 5 years after losing my mum, I think daily how much I would love to hear her voice again.
And then there was the advent of AI. Sarahs children found the Bristol based assistive tech company Smartbox and AI voice company ElevenLabs, and with a mere 8 seconds of her voice recording on a crackly old VHS tape, Smartbox worked their magic, and Sarah was given the ability to communicate using her own voice – regional accent, lisp and everything. Have a listen to this – I challenge you not to be moved https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0lxwnpd .
One of the things I enjoy most about coming into Skewb HQ is the sound of peoples voices – sometimes a low hum, sometimes a roar – and the proof in our varying accents that we have come together across continents, countries and regions to be part of a community. I won’t deny that there are aspects to AI that I find problematic, certainly in terms of inbuilt bias, and I feel that there is a risk of losing our individuality with ‘too much’ AI – but I really loved hearing Sarahs story in her own words, and from the point of view of her children, and seeing the very tangible benefits that AI can have in terms of accessibility.
MND Association | Fighting motor neurone disease
Inclusive Technology | Assistive Technology | Lifelites
Smartbox Home – Explore Grid AAC
By Gill Edwards
Gill Edwards is Senior Project Manager at Skewb. To speak with her about this topic in more detail, you can connect with her on LinkedIn.
