Motor neuron diseases took their voices. AI is bringing them back.

"A tracheostomy is a scary endeavor for people living with ALS, because it signifies crossing a new stage in life, a stage that is close to the end," Rodriguez tells me using a communication device. "Before the procedure I still had some independence, and I could still speak somewhat, but now I am permanently connected to a machine that breathes for me." Rodriguez and his wife, Maria Fernandez, who live in Miami, thought they would never hear his voice again. After feeding old recordings of Rodriguez's voice into a tool trained on voices from film, television, radio, and podcasts, the couple were able to generate a voice clone--a way for Jules to communicate in his "old voice." "Hearing my voice again, after I hadn't heard it for some time, lifted my spirits," says Rodriguez, who today communicates by typing sentences using a device that tracks his eye movements, which can then be "spoken" in the cloned voice.