The GTM manager of the artificial intelligence company ElevenLabs, Jorge Riquelme, and the president of the Spanish Association of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (adELA), Carmen Martínez Sarmiento, signed this Wednesday an agreement under which the company will offer all patients in the country with voice impairment an AI solution that will allow them to preserve it at no cost whatsoever.
"We have great hopes in the project", which "will allow people with ELA to continue being themselves and communicate with the outside world without the disease causing isolation", Martínez Sarmiento has pointed out regarding the company's 'Impact Program' in Spain, which will make it possible to generate a digital replica of one's own voice from current or old recordings.
In this regard, the member of the Board of Directors of adELA, Luis Carrascosa, has detailed that access to this tool will be managed through the ElevenLabs website, where the option to join the initiative will be enabled. "The person signs up, chooses one of the partners in this program -in this case adELA-, sends us a document certifying a voice disorder" and, from there, the association passes the verification and approval of the file on to the company.
As representatives of both entities have underscored, the proposal is open to all patients with ELA in Spain who present this type of problem, regardless of whether they are part of the association or not. They have specified that around 40 percent of the members have the help of speech therapists, which gives an idea of the number of people who could require this resource at present.
Carrascosa has added that the prevalence of the disease "grows slightly" because "it is diagnosed better" and has pointed out that, "in theory, everyone will eventually need the system if the disease evolves as it normally does", although he has admitted that, "unfortunately, some die before then".
Maintaining the essence of the person
Delving into the operation of the system, Riquelme has indicated that the purpose of the initiative is to "give voice". "ElevenLabs has cutting-edge technology that allows voices to remain", which can be used "in day-to-day life", with the aim of "maintaining the essence". In the same vein, Martínez Sarmiento has emphasized that the objective is to "help people with ALS have the best possible quality of life", something for which the association already has "Physiotherapy, Speech Therapy and caregivers treatments", to which the ElevenLabs AI tool is now added.
According to what Carrascosa has described, "the novelty of this technology is that (...) you can create a mathematical model that is capable of reproducing your voice, not the typical robotic voice". "Those who listen to you, hear you, the voice you had when it still was not affected", he has highlighted, before explaining that the system is based on a camera that interprets eye movements on a 'tablet' on which a keyboard appears.
For this reason, he has highlighted the company's "enormous generosity" in offering this advance to patients free of charge. He has insisted that "from the psychological point of view, being able to speak with your voice is a very important thing", since "it forms part of your identity", and has detailed that it will be the speech therapists who install the system during their home visits, once the specific training has been received.
Among the professionals who cooperate with adELA is the speech therapist Alfonso Muñoz, who considers that the tool represents "a before and after". "It is a very important day for our patients", he has stated, emphasizing that "it has been something very positively impactful" and relating that, when the AI is activated, "the room fills with an exciting joy".
Experience of the patients
The practical usefulness of the system has been illustrated by Juanan and Antonio, two people with ALS who have been able to try the technology during the presentation of the agreement. The first retains his voice, although with marked distortion, while the second has lost it completely. "I decided to clone my voice because, from the very first moment of the diagnosis, I knew that the voice was going to fade", Juanan has said, for whom "having your identity means a lot".
Antonio has pointed out that, with the communicator, "a fairly acceptable communicative level can be achieved", although he has acknowledged that it is necessary to "have much more patience when participating" in a conversation, since it is not possible to intervene "at the same speed as before" and it is advisable to "select very well the moments to participate". Even so, he has highlighted the "joy" that hearing his voice again causes in his environment.
To conclude, Martínez Sarmiento has expressed his confidence that technological innovation continues improving the lives of people with ELA. "Thanks to AI, progress will continue" and "we hope the moment will come when participation in conversations can be much more agile" after this "impressive advance that avoids isolation".