MND left her without a voice. Eight seconds of scratchy audio gave it back to her

Sarah Ezekiel was a lively woman living in London, working as a personal assistant in publishing, and raising her young family. But at age 34, her life changed dramatically when she was diagnosed with motor neurone disease, or MND. This disease causes muscles to weaken and can make it impossible to speak or move. Sarah lost her voice and the use of her hands just months after her second child was born. Her children, Aviva and Eric, only ever heard her speak through a computer that made a robotic, emotionless voice.

For 25 years, Sarah communicated using eye-gaze technology, which tracks her eyes as she looks at letters on a screen. This allowed her to build words and sentences, but the voice was always synthetic, like the famous scientist Stephen Hawking. Sarah felt isolated and missed being able to express herself with her real voice. She became a volunteer for the MND Association and a patron of Lifelites, a charity that helps families use technology to communicate. She even returned to painting, using eye-gaze technology to create art, which made her happy even though it was hard work.

Recently, a company called Smartbox wanted to help Sarah get her real voice back using artificial intelligence, or AI. They asked for an hour of her voice, but all her family could find was eight seconds of scratchy audio from an old VHS tape. Despite the poor quality, Smartbox used advanced AI tools to recreate Sarah's voice. The first version was thin and sounded American, but after more work, they made a voice that sounded like Sarah. When she heard it, Sarah almost cried. Her children were amazed, and the new voice helped them feel closer to their mom. Now, Sarah can express emotions and show her true self. Experts say AI voices are much better than old computer voices because they help people feel more like themselves. Sarah jokes that she sometimes misses her old posh robot voice, but she is glad to have her real voice back. She says, 'I'm glad to be back. It's better than being a robot.